


What's Eating Bucky Barnes?

by stickylips14 (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU - superhuman but not superheroes, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes is not okay, Detective Sam Wilson, Detective Steve Rogers, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I've never written for this fandom before rip, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PTSD, Probably a lot more characters to come, Protective Steve Rogers, Sex, please give Sam Wilson a holiday he doesn't deserve this, whole chapter of pwp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stickylips14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't national news when James Buchanan Barnes came back from the dead.<br/>It was barely even local news, a politician got the front page story that week and the story of James Buchanan Barnes was saved for page three with a photo of him when he was only twenty-two years old, the age he was when he went missing and was then presumed dead, next to the headline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome aboard!  
> This is my first time writing for the Marvel fandom, and I got inspired to start during the busiest time of my school year, but! I tend to write fast and I have been brewing over this idea for a while now, so this should get regularly updated. This is a pretty short chapter because it's really just establishing some things. Please be patient with me, and thanks for reading!

Two detectives were waiting on the other side of the front door when Bucky finally got around to opening it, still adjusting the hem of his shirt from pulling it on. He recognized them both as the detectives who had tried to speak to him in the hospital, but he hadn’t been able to tell them anything. He couldn’t remember anything, and he was too bewildered trying to understand why Becca was crying and his mother looked so much older than the last time he had seen her. Apparently, that’s what five years of grief did to a woman.  
The detectives were back because a week had passed and they were hopeful.

They were one Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Sam Wilson was slim built black man with a gentle, but closed off face. He struck Bucky as the kind of person who would make you work hard for their trust. He watched Bucky like he might have been dangerous, and for some reason that didn’t particularly bother him. His partner, Steve Rogers, was another story altogether.

In the hospital, Bucky had felt bad for discovering that his libido was intact while his mother was out crying in the hallway but detective Steve Rogers was some ridiculous six-foot-tall, All-American underwear model poured into a dress shirt and a brown leather jacket and no one in the damn building would have blamed Bucky for staring. He was dressed similarly today as well, obviously the leather jacket was a favorite.  
“Good morning, Mr. Barnes.”

“Morning. Call me Bucky.” He assured the detectives as he let them in, shuffling over into the kitchenette to turn on the coffee maker.

“Bucky?”

“It’s a nickname. My dad called dibs on all the good ones for James.” He poured three cups of coffee, and set the sugar and milk on the counter so the detectives could fix their drinks how they liked them. “I don’t think I’m a Jamie.”

“Bucky it is.” Detective Rogers said with a smile, and took his coffee black and with no sugar. Bucky tried to not think he was being judged for the two and a half sugars and cream he added to his mug. Sam had milk, one sugar. He was definitely judging.

“How are you settling in? Good to be home?” Detective Rogers was still smiling, and it was a very well practiced smile, not too cheerful, not too grim. Sam Wilson wasn’t smiling, simply observing the two of them over the rim of his coffee mug. His inky eyes only slid over Bucky’s left arm once or at least that was the only time he got caught.

“This is my sister’s apartment. I was home, but it wasn’t working out.” Steve rose his eyebrows in question. He was working hard to make this seem like a casual meeting, but his notebook was out, pen balanced between two fingers. Bucky took a sip of his sugary coffee and looked down at his left arm resting against the counter, tucked against his front. “Haven’t been sleeping great, kept waking my ma up at all hours and she wasn’t handling it well. So my sister gave me her place for as long as I need, she’s back home with ma.”

Steve was scribbling notes and from Bucky’s view, his handwriting was chicken scratch. “Bad dreams, Bucky? Are you remembering anything about what happened to you?” Bucky shook his head, a strand of hair slipping from behind his ear.

“I just remember the plane going down, then waking up in the hospital. The five years between the two are still a blank.”

“You don’t even remember how you got that?” Detective Wilson asked, gesturing to Bucky’s arm with his chin. He wasn’t shy about what everyone else was considering a sensitive topic, and again, Bucky wasn’t particularly bothered. It was refreshing in comparison to the way his mother had carefully never looked at it and never touched it. Not even the shoulder where it connected had seemed bearable for her. His left arm was made of metal. It had been x-rayed at the hospital to prove that it wasn’t any kind of casing, although Bucky had thought that immediately obvious from the way it was fused into his shoulders in a mottle of scars and ruined nerve endings. There was no mark on it. No signature, no serial number, nothing to hint as to who made it or who had attached it. When Bucky had gotten home he had stood in front of the mirror in his childhood bedroom and examined the mess and somehow, instinctively, he knew that the metal was fused down along his left ribs, not just his shoulder. He had been reinforced.  
“No, I don’t.” Was the short answer Bucky gave and he sipped his coffee again. The sugar and cream coated his mouth and even though it had been a week since he was so dehydrated his mouth had felt like cracking clay, the sensation was still so pleasant. Bucky assumed that he had put up with a dry mouth for a lot longer than a couple of days in the hospital, in reality. “I think I lost my arm when the plane crashed, though. I think that’s part of what I remember, might just be something from my dreams, though.”

Steve wrote it all down, drinking his coffee like he was sitting at his own desk and doing his work. Bucky watched the way his hand moved and couldn’t help but feel like notes wasn’t what his fingers were designed for. “Is there anything else?”  
“Sorry.” Bucky shrugged, and he was sorry. He wanted answers, for his family if not for himself because he was tired of hearing his mother’s breath hitch. “There’s nothing else.”

Detective Rogers’ professional not-too-grim, not-too-cheerful smile dropped as he sighed. He flipped his notebook shut and reached into the breast pocket of his dress shirt, taking out his business card to slide over the counter to Bucky after writing down a secondary phone number. “Keep this, if you remember anything you can call these numbers. My e-mail is on there as well, if that’s easier for you.”

“Thank you, detective.”

 

********

 

“You gave him your personal number.” Sam pressed the ground floor button on the elevator and didn’t look at his partner. Steve folded his arms over his chest and pointedly, didn’t say a thing. “Ain’t going where I think you’re going, are you, partner?”

“He’s possibly a trauma victim. He might find it easier to talk to me if it’s outside of work.”

“And if you get to spend a couple hours looking at him, that’s just an added bonus, yeah?”

“Sam.”

“Steve.”

 

  ********

 

After the third night of Bucky waking up screaming and his poor mother looking like she was on the verge of a heart attack from the start, his sister let him take her apartment while she moved into her old room in their family home. His mother and sister weren’t thrilled at the idea of him being alone, but he had calmly reminded them that he had been fine when he was discharged from the hospital and in fact, had been faring pretty well even when had arrived. Mostly, Bucky had been dehydrated and an IV line had fixed that in no time at all. He’d been kept for two nights on observation, but he was stable and walking around and there wasn’t anything they could do for the nightmares or the memory loss, so he was allowed to go home.

Bucky washed out the three mugs that were left in the sink after the detectives. He’d stuck Detective Rogers’ card to the fridge on top of a cluster of family photos his sister had up and an old shopping list. The latest photo was still an old one of him and Becca. He was twenty-two, clean shaven with short hair and had an ease about him as he slung his arm around his sister’s shoulder. He was twenty-seven now and couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened to the guy in the photo. He felt smothered. For a week Bucky had felt on the verge of a panic attack-- in fact he was pretty sure that was what the tightness in his chest was when he woke up every night, sweating and scrabbling to hold onto the details of what had startled him awake in the first place. He never managed it except details so small they meant nothing. Snow. A dark room. Pain.

Bucky sighed and pushed his flesh and bone hand through his hair and tried to ignore that his fingers were trembling. Almost everyone he had seen since he had gotten back had looked at him with concern, looked at him like he was fragile, had told him that it was okay for him not to be okay-- where ever he had been for the past five years, everyone assumed had been bad and were expected some repercussions to catch up with him, and soon. But Bucky wasn’t falling apart at the seams-- he was fine. He was going to fine. Where ever he had been didn’t matter, because he was back now and all he had to focus on now was getting his life back on track.

Getting his life back on track was a huge job, too, because being presumed dead for five years really punched a hole through your options. His credit was a mess and he would have to find a job soon, so he could give Becca her apartment back and find his own. He was qualified for McDonalds, maybe. Before all that though, he had to jump through the loops of getting the government to recognize that he was, in fact, alive.

Bucky was definitely having a panic attack. The tile of the kitchenette was cool against his cheek but didn’t absorb his tears so they just pooled against his cheek and blurred his vision. By the time he could find the strength in his legs to get up, the tears had dried against his cheek and he was as bone-tired as he had been in the hospital. All he could do was climb into bed even though it was barely past noon and go to sleep.

 

********

 

“Steve?” Sam Wilson stopped at his partner’s desk, surprised to see him there among the pile of paperwork. Steve looked up at him as he took a sip of coffee, closing the file he had in his hand. Sam narrowed his eyes slightly, crossing his arms. “Why are you still here?”  
“Just reading up on a case file.” His partner offered up rather weakly, at least to Sam because he knew his tells. The golden boy wasn’t a good liar, and they had been together since they were beat cops. Steve held his gaze for a few seconds before conceding defeat. “James Buchanan Barnes.”  
“Barnes? Come on, man, we haven’t heard anything from him in nearly a month now. There isn’t anything in the file that’s gonna get us anywhere. I know you don’t like leaving things hanging, but there are no leads on what happened to him. He doesn’t remember anything.”  
“I know-- I know, Sam.” Steve put his mug down and ran a hand down his face with a sigh. “There’s just something about it that I can’t let go, you know? He was obviously taken somewhere. Something happened to him. That prosthetic is-- _advanced_ , even by today’s standards, why is no-one laying claim to it? And Bucky-- Barnes, Barnes was just a kid from Brooklyn. No one asked for ransom on him, there was no political advantage of having him hostage. They let the world believe he was dead, and then suddenly he shows up again, five years later, in near-perfect health. You saying there’s nothing to look into there?”  
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.” Sam pointed a finger at his partner, something Steve would have considered rude if it was coming from anyone else. “What I’m saying is, we can’t do anything without any leads. But hey, you wanna dig into this? Why don’t you pay Barnes a visit? Maybe he remembers something, and even if he doesn’t, you’ll get your eyeful of tall, dark and handsome.”  
“I’m taller than him.”  
Sam leveled him with one effective look.

“Go home, Rogers.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Steve’s favorite Thai food restaurant was a hole in the wall on his route home that only did pick-up and delivery, and Bucky Barnes was standing near the front counter of it, waiting. He'd had to duck into his line of vision slightly to be sure; Bucky had his left hand buried deep in his coat pocket and an old baseball cap pulled down low enough to obscure his face with shadow from the fluorescent lights above. His hair was a little greasy, but his level of stubble was the same as it was when Steve had last seen him a month ago, so he was keeping up some self-maintenance which Steve took as a good sign.

“Bucky?” His shoulders jerked up slightly at the sound of his name, his eyes taking a moment too long to settle on Steve’s face, but when they did he seemed to calm down.

“Detective Rogers.”

“Oh, I'm off duty. You can call me Steve.” The smile he gave Bucky this time wasn't his practiced one, it was warm and genuine as he offered out his hand like they were meeting for the first time. Bucky hesitated, then drew his left hand out to shake his. “Been here before? This place is one of my favorites.”

“Yeah, I grew up in the area. Came here a few times.”

“Me too. I was pretty dubious for a while, but once I tried it I felt like I had wasted a chunk of my life on burgers.”

“You're from Brooklyn?” Bucky was gradually relaxing as they spoke, although his hand had quickly retreated back into his pocket once Steve had let go. He had some gauge for pressure in his metal arm; the detective’s handshake was pleasantly firm.

“Born and raised. I guess we managed to stay out of each other's way the whole time, huh?”

“I guess so.” They held each other's gaze for a moment and it didn't make Bucky nervous, he didn't feel caught in the clear blue of Steve’s eyes and he wasn’t grateful when his order number was called. He muttered a thank you to the woman who handed his bag of food over and watched as Steve’s order came shortly after. He was turning to leave, but apparently this just wasn't going to be a quick escape.

“Hey, Buck?” Steve caught the door handle, pulling it open for him slowly enough that he had to look up at him otherwise he would look weird, or rude. “Wanna have dinner together? I only live a block away. No pressure.”

 

Steve's apartment building was old, but well kept. They took the stairs despite the elevator being in perfect working order although so old that it had a railing that you had to pull across to get in and out of it. The stairs weren’t so bad, though, Steve only lived on the third floor and Bucky wasn't unfit. A pretty blonde woman with a washing basket full of scrubs balanced on her hip had beamed at Steve and bade him a good evening as they stepped onto the landing of his floor, and Steve had the good graces to look a little thrown. Bucky rose his eyebrows at him as the woman descended the stairs.

“My neighbour. She's nice.”

“Nice.”

“This is me.” He said, and unlocked the door to his apartment. The first assumption Bucky made was that Steve was apparently a music purist, with an extensive collection of records and a well-kept record player taking pride of place in his open living space, but aside from that there wasn't a massive amount of personality in the place. It was clean and tidy, some evidence of Steve’s work life leeching into his personal here and there. If Bucky knew him in some capacity other than having him visit a couple of times to ask futile questions, he would have snooped more. Gotten closer to the photo frames arranged along his bookshelf. Instead he sat on the couch and turned on the TV as instructed, and agreed to a beer when Steve offered.

They watched the second _Die Hard_ movie while they ate. There wasn’t a lot of speaking at first and it wasn’t uncomfortable. Bucky had gotten hungry for some silence; his sister and mother hadn’t stopped visiting or inviting him over since he had been released from the hospital. He loved them both, but their constant nervous chatter and need to fill him in on everything he had missed in the past five years **_immediately_ ** was too much. Steve was a gross eater, the beer was cold and the _Die Hard_ movies were arguably still the best cop movies out there. This was a moment of rare, untainted bliss.  
When the credits rolled Bucky gathered up their empty beer bottles and food containers, waving off Steve as he began to protest. On his way back to the couch, Bucky’s curiosity got the better of him and he stopped to look over the few personal items Steve had scattered around, snatching up one of the photo frames. “Is this _you_?”  
“What? Oh--” Steve was watching him over the back of the couch and knew what photo he was gawking at from the frame alone. It was Steve and his mother, only Steve was about one hundred and forty pounds lighter and just a little sallow and hollow-cheeked. “Yeah, that’s me and my mother.”  
Bucky didn’t put the photo down, still openly staring as he came around to sit on the couch. “What the hell happened? I mean-- no offence-- but you look like you’re on death’s door.” He paused, and then with eyes somehow even wider than before, only now focused on the real Steve, not the Steve in the photo, he grimaced. “You weren’t, were you?”  
He visibly relaxed when Steve laughed. “No, well, nothing worse than what I had as a kid. Asthma, mostly.” He said it with a shrug and watched with amusement as Bucky’s brain whirred trying to comprehend the difference. Taking pity on him Steve reached over and took the frame from him, setting it down on the coffee table. “I got better.”  
“Yeah you did.”  
“Ever heard of Stark Industries?” Steve replied, blowing past Bucky’s slip of the tongue which he was grateful for.  
“I was only gone five years. Why?”  
“Once my mom passed away, I was approached by Stark to volunteer for an experimental drug trial.” Bucky had started to protest, tell him that he didn’t have to talk about it if he didn’t want to, and Steve waved him off with the same gesture Bucky had used to stop him from arguing about the dishes. “Back during World War II, Tony Stark’s father had been working on a serum to make-- don’t laugh, alright? -- super soldiers. He didn’t succeed, and once the war was won regardless the project got scrapped. Tony picked it back up again, although not for the same reasons. The serum was designed to make perfect human specimens. No illnesses, no weak vision or bad hearing or anything.”  
Bucky watched Steve shift on the couch, resting one arm along the back of it and admiring how at ease he was talking about something that seemed extremely personal, and possibly confidential but it wasn’t like Bucky had anyone to tell. He just wished he was able to be so open.  
“Stark was in an incident over in the Middle-East. He watched people die, it… shook him up, so he shut down his weapons manufacturing department and started working on other things; clean energy, advanced medicines. Advanced prosthetics.” Bucky curled in his metallic fingers out of reflex, but nothing more. Steve carried on with only a brief glance. “I agreed to the drug trial and… It was successful.”  
“Wait so, you’re basically a super soldier now? And they’ve got you working for the NYPD?” Bucky seemed offended on behalf of him but it only made Steve laugh, shaking his head to dismiss Bucky’s outrage.  
“It wasn’t a government funded project, it all went through Stark Industries, so they weren’t really willing to put me to use in case something went wrong. I’m technically still part of the trial, will be for the rest of my life to see what will happen to me over time. I chose to become a cop, although I shot up the ranks faster than normal, admittedly.” Steve sounded just a little smug, the lift in his tone of voice stirring something very primal in Bucky. He liked to see a flicker of conceit in Steve, who had every reason to be proud of himself. It also chipped off a little bit of that poster boy charm, which was intimidating to someone who was unemployed and missing five year’s worth of memories. Bucky didn’t have a massive amount of appeal, Steve had it in spades.  
“Was it just the drug trial that made you want to be a cop?”  
“No.” Steve offered up quickly, carding a hand through his hair before resting it on the back of the couch again. His hand lay behind Bucky’s shoulder. “My father was a police officer, he passed away when I was still pretty young, but he was my hero.”  
“... So how many lifetime movie offers have you had, Rogers?”  
“Shut up.”

 

Bucky Barnes didn’t really look or act like a man who had been missing for five years, but that didn’t do much to convince Steve that he was fine. The detective had spoken to both his mother and his sister when he had first arrived at the hospital and when he had paid Bucky a visit to his sister’s apartment at the beginning of the month he had been able to take in some of the photos of him as a younger man. There had been a swagger about him then, when he was twenty-two and fresh faced, a natural ease that was able to seep out through his expression even when caught in a still. He had a sly smile and a way of setting his jaw and squaring his shoulders that would have made Steve fall all over himself if any of that had been turned his way for even a second. The man that sat on his couch now didn’t have it anymore, there was in its place a shakiness to him, something a little flimsy given the task of holding him together and Steve knew it wasn’t going to last forever. He had invited Bucky up to his apartment with the intention of a more relaxed environment for him to ask more questions but had reassessed his approach by the time the movie had ended. If he wanted Bucky to be honest about anything that had come to the surface or anything that _might_ , he needed to trust him. Bucky wasn’t going to tell him just because he was a detective; he was going to tell him because he was a friend, if they could get that far. Steve had anticipated a struggle.  
It wasn’t a struggle at all.

Bucky may not have been the man he saw in the photos, but he still had a rather natural charm to him. Youthful smugness had been replaced with something more thoughtful and quiet. It had made it easy for Steve to tell him about the drug trial, to mention his mother without the weight of her loss sinking into him, weighing him down like concrete in his veins. The warmth of his skin radiating through his t-shirt so that Steve could feel it on his hand where it didn’t quite touch him had made him almost a little eager to try and impress Bucky.

A call from Sam interrupt Steve’s train of thought, and he excused himself to his bedroom to take it, closing the door softly behind him.  
“Hey, weren’t you the one who told me to go home and quit thinking about work for an evening?” Steve sat on the edge of his bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “What’s up, Sam?”  
“It doesn’t sound like I’m interrupting anything, anyway, Rogers.”  
“I have a guest over, _actually._ ” There was a hint of gloating in his tone before he caught up with the fact that Bucky was technically work. He rubbed at his forehead.  
“That cute nurse next door? You finally clued in on that?”  
“Sam-- She’s just. She’s just _nice_ , alright? I have someone else here.”   
Steve could vividly imagine Sam’s incredulous look, the crease between his eyebrows and suspicious shift of his eyes. “Someone _else?_ ”  
“Bucky Barnes.”

 

After a five minute chewing out from Sam about Steve’s choice in guests they got to the original point of the phone call-- a bit of note sharing for a case they were working on, some prep for the morning briefing. It was fairly quick and about fifteen minutes later Steve was ending the call and getting up to return to the living room.

The TV was turned off, and the living room was silent aside from the raspy sounds of breaths that weren’t coming easy, or at all. Bucky wasn’t on the couch-- instead he was wedged into the space between the couch and the coffee table with his hands pressed over his face, metallic fingers pressing indents into his forehead. His shoulder shook with the force of holding everything in. It was a contained but unmistakable panic attack.  
“Bucky?” Steve kneeled down, keeping himself at arm’s length from the man curling further in on himself by the second. There was no shift at the call of his name, so Steve tried again. “James?”  
He moved at that, his hands lowering only enough that he could look over his fingertips at Steve, his eyes a tear-clear steel blue, made all the brighter by the red around the rims and dark eyelashes. Steve felt his heart break just a little; the exhausted and broken look in Bucky’s eyes made him look like a lost child, but he wasn’t sure enough to lay a hand on him in comfort. “Hey, you’re okay. Do you know where you are right now?” Bucky said nothing, but his hands dropped down to instead rub over his neck, fingers twining against the nape of his own neck. “You’re in my apartment, I’m Detective Steve Rogers. Can you tell me what’s going on right now? I might be able to help.”

The silence stretched out for a long time, but by the end of it Steve had managed to lay his hand on Bucky’s shoulder with no adverse reaction to the delicate touch. He rubbed his thumb over the raise of his collarbone, and after another long silence Bucky’s breathing was starting to match the rhythm. Steve’s back was beginning to ache from holding the same crouching position for so long, but he’d endure. Another five minutes passed and the tip of Bucky’s tongue came out and wet his lips before he spoke, quietly so that Steve had to lean in closer to catch it. “There was a man… On the TV.” Bucky murmured, his gaze far away from what was immediately in front of him. “I… Knew him.”  
“From the time you were away, Buck?” He nodded, and when he looked at Steve he knew he was actually seeing him now. He had made it back from where ever his memory had taken him. “Can you tell me his name?”

“... No. He never told me.”  
“That’s okay. Do you mind if I sit a little closer?” Bucky shook his head minutely, so Steve pushed the coffee table out into the room a little more so that he could sit comfortably beside Bucky, backs against the couch. Cautiously, he put his arm around Bucky, resting his hand lightly on the top of his arm and to his surprise but not recoil, Bucky was happy to press in closer. “Let me know when you’re good, Buck. We can watch another movie if you want, or I can walk you home.”

 

They chose to watch another movie, although neither of them paid a lot of attention to it. Steve had gotten them both another beer and they were still sitting close to each other, although not touching like they had been on the floor. Bucky was picking the label off his bottle.  
“Hey, wanna know one of the downsides of the whole super-soldier thing?” Steve piped up, because the silence didn’t have the initial ease of the beginning of the night.  
“Tripping over all the girls throwin’ themselves at you?”  
Steve pointedly ignored that. “Can’t get drunk.”  
“Shit, really?” Bucky’s laugh was mostly breath, but it was an achievement to get it out of him at all. “My tolerance is fucked since I got back-- guess I didn’t drink for like, five years. I might be a little buzzed by the time I finish this. Why can’t you get drunk?”  
“My metabolism is so fast it barely even touches my system. The office Christmas party is simultaneously the best and worst part of my year.” Bucky snorted at that, smiling as he took a sip of his beer. He was moving a little sluggishly after his panic attack, but Steve wasn’t surprised that he had exhausted himself. He wasn’t new to panic attacks; he’d never seen one so highly contained. “Hey, it’s late. If you don’t feel like walking home, you’re welcome to take the couch. I get up pretty early, though.”  
“Is that alright?”  
“Yeah, wouldn’t have offered otherwise. I’m going to head to bed soon, so yes or no?”

 

Steve woke up a minute before his 6am alarm went off. His room was dark since the winter sun rose late, tinted just a little blue from his curtains filter the streetlights below. He turned onto his back and felt the weight of another person in his bed beside him and for a moment it didn't register as unusual, until it did and Steve sat up.

At some point during the night, Bucky had climbed into his bed. He was asleep with his back to Steve, his metal hand resting with an uncanny delicacy on the pillow, next to his head. His breathing was shallow but even, his mouth relaxed out of the slight downwards pull it was in when he was awake.

Steve silenced his alarm the moment it went off, but the second of sound was enough for Bucky to stir and Steve watched the drowsy confusion set in at the unfamiliar surroundings. It started to crest into panic before he turned and saw Steve who smiled, just a little. He wasn’t sure how visible it was in the low light, though.

“Steve?” He voice was gravelly with sleep. “Am I in your bed?”

“By your own volition, I promise.” Steve said, gently, but he couldn't totally hide his perplexity at the situation.

“ _Fuck_ , I'm sorry--” Bucky was stopped by a hand firm on his scarred shoulder, stopping him from sitting up entirely. “Steve?”

“It's six in the morning, you can stay and sleep longer if you want. I'm going for a run then I'll have to head out to work.”

“What time?”

“Just before eight.”

“... I'll sleep until then.”

Steve laughed as he climbed out of his bed, leaving the curtains closed for Bucky and grabbing his jogging gear from his dresser before heading through to the bathroom to get changed.

 

About twenty minutes into his run, Sam joined him. They usually managed to cross paths in the mornings, but they didn't wait for one another. Steve grinned as he slowed his pace considerably to make sure Sam kept up. Sam made a gesture like he was going to kick out one of Steve's ankles if he kept doing that so obviously.

“You're in a good mood. Had a good night?” Sam asked through huffs of breath.

“Woke up with Bucky in my bed, you tell me.” Steve wasn't even panting. Sam made a slightly flushed variation of the expression Steve had so easily imagined on his face the night before, and Steve laughed.

“You move fast, Rogers.”

“It wasn't what you think. He had a panic attack, I let him have the couch for the night and when I woke up, there he was.” a shrug was a hard gesture to manage when running, Steve slowed down to a stop at the corner of his block. “He was as confused as I was.”

“What was the panic attack about?” Sam asked, hands on his hips as he paced in slow circles until his breathing started to level out. His tone of voice had changed subtly; he was thinking as a detective, not a friend. “Did he tell you anything?”

“Someone on the TV triggered him. He couldn't give me a name; said the guy never told it to him in the first place. I'm going to look into it today if I can.”

“Might have been a news bulletin. You'll be able to get a list of names, might be a start.” His partner's jaw was set as he thought, dark eyes flickering back and forth in thought. Steve let his thoughts run, clapping Sam on the shoulder to let him know he was heading back to his apartment. They could catch up at work, by then Sam probably would have gone ahead and done the research himself which wasn't exactly what he wanted but at least he might be able to take it to Bucky within the same day and finally get some traction on his case.

 

Bucky eased the bedroom door open when he heard Steve come home, stepping out into the living room only when he could lay his eyes on the detective. If he lingered in the doorway it wasn't his caution; it was Steve fresh from a run, running a hand through his hair and tipping his head back as he drank deeply from a bottle of water. Even in track pants, Steve looked _damn_ good. And here Bucky had thought the sight of him in his pyjama bottoms had been the highlight of his day. Soft cotton held very few secrets.

“Hey,” Steve didn't flinch at the sudden sound, instead he leaned his hip against the kitchen counter and smiled as Bucky approached as though he had been expecting him. He'd changed out of the sweat pants Steve had loaned him, he was back in his jeans. “Uh, thanks for putting me up for the night. I can get out of your hair now.”

“Coffee first?

“Please.”

“Yeah, you definitely have that only half alive look to you.” Steve laughed, the coffee machine already bubbling away as he took down two mugs. “How did you take it again, cream and a half dozen sugars? Marshmallows too?”

“Aw, shut up, punk. Where ever I was, they didn't serve coffee alright? I can take it with two sugars if that makes you feel better.”

Steve let him have his three sugars on the condition that he took it with skim milk which he grumbled about playfully. They stood opposite to one another, leaning against the counters and sipping their coffees. It was while he was rinsing out the mugs that Steve finally spoke up.

“So, I was thinking I would try and find out who it was you saw on the TV last night. It was a news bulletin, wasn't it?” He was watching Bucky from the corner of his eye, while Bucky suddenly found intense interest in this month’s calendar photo that was stuck to Steve’s fridge. It was some generic calendar an office supply company had given the precinct as freebies at the beginning of the year.

“Yeah… Yeah it was.”

“My partner thought it might've been—Sam Wilson, you met him. If I get a list together today, I could bring it over.”

“Do…” Bucky exhaled slowly through his nose, bringing his flesh and bone hand up to his mouth so he could chew on his thumb nail. Whatever he was hesitating about, which Steve had a pretty good idea on, he didn't voice. “You're not sick of lookin’ at my mug yet?”

Steve laughed for Bucky’s sake as he dried his hands off. “Not by a long shot. I'll give you plenty of warning before I show up, and if it's not a good time, you can just let me know, alright?”

“Yeah. Alright.”

 

They parted ways at the stoop of Steve’s apartment building. The moment they had stepped outside Bucky had shoved his hands into his coat pockets and seemed to have shrunk into himself a little, hunched his shoulders up to make himself smaller. The baseball cap was back as well, tugged down to shield his face. It only fuelled the work Steve wanted to achieve today all the more. He squeezed Bucky’s shoulder gently before he left.  
“I’ll get you some answers, Buck. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! Baby steps but here we go!  
> Let me know what you think, and hopefully the next update won't be far away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this came out quick! I wrote this chapter in my head while trying desperately to pay attention to my last class for the semester. I don't know if the next chapter will happen as quickly, but I'm on break now so I certainly have the time if nothing else.  
> I hope you enjoy this update! Let me know!

Steve sat at his desk with the list of names Sam had come up with from all the news bulletins from the night before, during the time when they’d been on the phone with one another. It was a short list, which Steve was grateful for, but some of the names on it made the hairs on his arms stand on end and his stomach twist at the thought of what it meant if some of these people were at the core of what had shaken Bucky up so badly. On his lunch break Steve picked up his phone and dialed the number he had for the landline of Bucky’s apartment, but all he got was an engaged tone so he hung up and went out for lunch. When he got back he tried again, but the line was still busy. He hung up with a sigh and tried to not think it was unusual. Bucky had only been home for a month, he was probably always busy with visitors; old friends and family members. It wasn’t so bizarre for him to be on the phone for over an hour no matter how much it seemed like something Bucky would hate. That was presumptuous. Steve didn’t know him that well.

When his work day was over and Bucky’s phone was still engaged, he let himself make assumptions and go with his gut: something was wrong. He looked over the list of names sitting on his desk and again his eyes caught on one in particular—so he highlighted it and shrugged on his coat as he stood up.  
“Hey, Romanov,” Natasha was still at her desk, still engrossed in her work and looking to put in some overtime. Regardless, she looked up at Steve’s call. Her red hair was flat ironed straight and severe, but her smile was soft and only a little sarcastic.  
“You know I’m not going out for a drink with you, Rogers. It’s a nightmare every time, _and_ I’m working.”  
“Actually I was hoping to add onto your workload, if that’s alright.” Steve gave her his best Boy Scout smile and was met with a narrowing of her perfectly painted eyes. He tried for a look a little close to pleading as he offered over the list. “I was hoping you could call on a favour from Barton for me. The highlighted name. I need any information on him I can get.” That caught Natasha’s attention, so she took the sheet of paper and glanced over it. One eyebrow arched and her gaze flickered up.  
“Are you getting up to no good, Rogers?” She asked in something close to a sing-song, her subtle way of letting him know that she was on-board if he needed her to be. “I can probably pull some strings with Barton, but you owe me one. Is this to do with the Barnes case?”  
“Sam been talking to you?”  
“You know he’s the precinct gossip. This is a pretty unorthodox approach for you, Rogers, and I hear that this guy is right up your alley.”  
Natasha made a visible attempt to stifle her laughter when Steve’s cheeks flushed ever so slightly. “I just want to get this guy some answers. You’ll talk to Barton? I have to go.”  
“I’ll talk to Barton. Good night, Steve.”

 

********  


The door to Bucky’s apartment wasn’t locked. Steve hadn’t tried it immediately; he’d called out to him and knocked several times and when he hadn’t heard anything on the other side he tried his luck. The apartment was silent, and the phone wasn’t in its cradle on the kitchen bench. There was a distinct feeling that something was _wrong_ , Steve’s hand rested over the grip of his gun almost subconsciously as he walked with light steps into the living room. “Bucky? It’s Detective Rogers. Steve.” He paused, but there was no response. “I tried calling you a few times, is everything alright?”  
The living room was clear as well as the kitchenette, the bathroom too. The dread was starting to settle in deep; a weight in Steve’s stomach as he crept down the hall. He closed his hand around the grip of his weapon with purpose now, although didn’t draw it from the holster. He moved along close to the wall, sweeping the hall and watching the doors to the bedrooms. If it wasn’t for his heightened reflexes, Steve never would have ducked out of the way of the mean left hook that made contact with the plaster of the wall instead of his face. The metal of Bucky’s left hand punched straight through the wall but Steve didn’t take the time to consider how lucky he was that it wasn’t him; He caught Bucky’s right wrist in his hand and twisted his grip to slam Bucky into the wall. He didn’t draw his weapon, pinning Bucky with his forearm across his shoulders. “Bucky! Calm down, it’s Steve—I’m not here to hurt you.” Bucky’s entire body was singing with tension under him, his breath shallow and harsh, being forced out past his teeth. “I promise I’m not here to hurt you. It’s okay.” He spoke softly, close enough to Bucky that his voice only a little over a whisper. His hand moved from around Bucky’s fist to his wrist and he watched from the corner of his eye as his fingers slowly started to uncurl. “That’s it… If I let go of you, are you going to take another swing?”  
Another few seconds dragging out before Bucky’s breathing finally evened out and he shook his head in a short, jerky motion. Slowly, Steve let go of him and took a step back. Bucky collapsed under the weight of himself for a moment, catching himself on the hole he had punched in the wall and slowly he drew himself back up to full height. He rested his forehead against the wall and let out a shaky breath and a quite curse. “Did I… Are you hurt? I—I’m sorry. _Fuck_ , I’m sorry.”  
Steve turned him around with gentle hands on his shoulders. Bucky didn’t fight it, and didn’t flinch when Steve’s hand touched his cheek lightly. There was a ghost of a smile on Steve’s lips that Bucky met with confusion—he had nearly caved his damn head in and he was _smiling?_ There was still tension in his shoulders and a cluster headache forming near his right temple and all he could anchor himself with right now was that ridiculous smile and gentle, bright blue eyes. “I’m okay, Buck. Don’t worry about me. Do you want to tell me what’s going on? I tried calling you all day but the line was engaged. I was worried.”  
Bucky was quiet for a long time, lips parted slightly and his breath hitching.  
“I’m… malfunctioning.” He lifted his left hand where his metal fingers were covered in plaster and were locked in position half way out of a fist. “I can’t move my hand.” Steve moved his hand from Bucky’s cheek to touch his palm, hissing quietly and yanking back quickly.  
“It’s hot. Has this happened before?”  
“No—Not that I remember. I don’t know how to fix it.”  
“I mean. I know someone who might.”

 

********

 

Stark Tower was an obnoxiously well-lit building in Manhattan, and Bucky had shrunk away from the window of the taxi when it stopped outside of it. He was shaky and Steve knew now that his instinct when he was outside of his apartment was to hunch up, make himself as small and invisible as possible. He didn’t like being out in the open and he didn’t want attention drawn to him. Steve gently squeezed his shoulder before paying the driver and climbing out. He waited for Bucky on the footpath and they entered the building together. Steve looked perfectly at ease as he strolled over the polished marble floor to the elevator and Bucky wanted to sink into the ground. As the elevator doors slid shut, a polite disembodied voice spoke.  
“Welcome, Detective Rogers and guest. Tony is expecting you on the seventy-ninth floor.” Bucky made a strangled sound at that. That was very high up.  
“Take us up, JARVIS.”  
“Of course, sir.”  
“Doing okay, Buck?” Steve touched his shoulder again, coaxing Bucky to look up at him from beneath his uncertain frown. His hands were in his pockets but his shoulders relaxed a little. “Tony’s a lot of energy, but he’s a good man at heart. He’ll do his best for you.” Bucky gave him a watery smile that held when the elevator doors opened and Steve led them out. Tony Stark’s workroom was all clean lines and state of the art technology and Bucky felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin he felt so out of place among it all. A dark spot among white lights and a mix of medical and scientific equipment. The man himself was leaning far back in his chair, staring up at a holograph of something Bucky didn’t recognize. It looked complicated and he wasn’t in the right mind to be fascinated and curious.  
“Tony.” Steve greeted, and the man sat up and spun in his chair with a grin, his hands splayed to capture both Steve and Bucky in the gesture.  
“Cap! You shouldn’t have, it’s not even my birthday.” He said, pressing one of his hands to his chest, over his heart. “I’m touched. Truly. Let me see.”  
Steve looked over at Bucky, his smile soft as he gave a reassuring nod. Bucky stepped closer to Stark and slowly took his hand out of his pocket and shrugged his coat off. He rolled his sleeve up to his elbow before presenting his hand. Stark looked positively delighted as he scooted his chair in closer and picked up a pen to tap against one of his fingers. It didn’t move, still stuck in a loose fist. He whistled to himself and finally stood up. “Here, come sit.”  
Bucky wasn’t in a rush to follow, and even more reluctant to slide into the chair akin to the kind you found in a dentist’s operatory. Steve followed after them both, pulling a stool up on his right side to sit and keep up that pretty, reassuring smile. “Can you take your shirt off?” Tony asked as he gathered up a handful of tools, laying them out neatly on a tray beside the chair. Bucky made a face, and then Steve took the initiative to help him get the shirt off of his broken arm and over his head. His eyes cut a very clear path down Bucky’s chest and stomach and then quickly focused on his metal arm, not his face. Bucky felt the flicker of a satisfied smirk for a moment and then Tony was beside him again, gloves on his hands as he moved his arm however he needed to examine it. He occasionally hummed to himself at points of interest in the design, poking at the plates of metal clustered near his wrist. “You have no idea who made this?”  
“… No.”   
“It’s not a bad design, you know. You could have done worse.” Tony glanced up and must have caught Steve’s cool gaze, because he shut up pointedly. He ran his fingers up along Bucky’s wrist and found something that popped and slid the disks apart, exposing the wire work underneath. “So, you must be the guy who came back from the dead after five years. I read about you. What little there was to read.” The metal fingers suddenly clenched when Tony touched a cluster of wires and he huffed as if he were offended. “Can you feel anything?”  
“No. I can feel variations in pressure, but not much else. You’re not hurting me.” Bucky sighed and leaned back into the headrest, staring up at the ceiling and focusing hard on the pattern debossed into it while Tony worked. He didn’t need to see. Occasionally Steve touched him; fingers to the wrist, more shoulder squeezes and softly spoken questions about how he was doing. Five minutes of concentrated silence was the limited for Tony, apparently.  
“So, Cap, how are you doing? Haven’t shrunk a couple inches or anything?” He asked insincerely, and Bucky felt Steve’s huff of breath against his arm. He was sitting with his elbows on his thighs; he was closer than Bucky realized, watching Tony poke around in his arm. It made him feel especially naked, and vulnerable.   
“You would have heard from me if there were any changes, Stark. Still in top condition.”   
“Yeah?” Tony glanced up, an eyebrow cocked. “Nothing wrong with your heart?”  
“Can you fix his arm or not?”  
“Of course I can. It just some pinched wires and a hell of a lot of plaster clogging up the plates. In fact, that’s a bit of a problem with this design, it’s all pretty grimy. I could-”  
“No.” Bucky cut him off, his mouth in a firm line. “Don’t change anything.” Tony accepted that without comment and turned back to his work, telling Bucky to try and move his fingers and when he did successfully, Tony turned his attention to cleaning out the plaster dust and other grime that had accumulated under the plates. Once he was done, he slid the plates back into place and pushed his chair back a little, stretching in his seat.   
“Alright then. We’re all finished, should be good as new although you should probably avoid, I’m guessing, punching holes in walls. Really, you need frequent maintenance to avoid this and other problems. I could arrange something.” Bucky sat up slowly, curling his hand into a fist and then flexing his fingers again a couple of times. He was reluctant to admit that they moved more freely and smoothly than they had for as long as he could remember having the arm, which was only really a month.  
“… Maybe. Thank you.”  
“Yeah, thank you, Tony.” Steve added, offering Bucky his shirt before reaching over to shake Tony’s hand. “I know it was last minute.”  
“Come on, Cap. You know I wouldn’t say no to getting my hands on something like this.” He patted Bucky’s metal arm through his shirt. “In fact I would love to take a longer look some time.”  
“I’ll think about it.” Bucky agreed reluctantly before he got out of the chair, hands in his jeans pockets in absence of his coat. He took the business card Steve offered him on Tony’s behalf which made Bucky want to argue. “Thanks.”  
“We should go, though. It’s getting late and you seemed like you were working on something.”  
“Oh, yeah. Can’t talk about it yet, though. I’m not gonna beg for you guys to stay, so I’ll see you next check-in, Cap. And hopefully I’ll see you again too, Barnes.”

 

********

 

“Why does he call you Cap?”  
“Uh, it’s to do with the drug trial. When his father was working on the serum there were some suggestions going around for what to call the soldiers, the project, all sorts. One of the suggestions was Captain America.”  
“Captain America.” Bucky deadpanned.  
“It was the 1940s, Buck. And they were in the middle of a war.” Steve laughed though, mostly because it was nice to hear Bucky laugh with him. He was a lot more relaxed on the cab ride back to his apartment, and seemed to be comfortable in his own skin once he was home again. He threw his coat over the back of his couch and turned on the coffee maker like it was routine. He took two mugs down on autopilot and poured Steve a cup. He took it with a nod and leaned against the kitchen counter. He knew he’d eventually have to bring up the list Sam had put together for him, but something had happened to Bucky today already and he didn’t want to tip him into another panic attack. Bucky fixed his drink and took a sip before he spoke, back facing Steve.  
“I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t—I wasn’t… aware of what I was doing. I would never do that to you normally.”  
“I know, Buck. But can you tell me what happened to set you off?” Bucky’s shoulder raised in a sigh, and then there was a knock at his door followed by the jingle of a key in the lock. He was frowning as he turned around, stepping away from the counter so he could see the door. It was Becca, stepping into the apartment with a bag of food in one hand and a bright smile on her face.   
“Hey, Bucky! Why aren’t you answering the phone? Oh—Detective Rogers, how good to see you.”  
“You can’t just let yourself in—“  
“Ms. Barnes.” Steve nodded politely and then looked over to Bucky. “I can leave if you’d like?”  
“Nonsense, I have enough food for all of us. Don’t leave me alone with my numbskull brother.” Becca interrupted, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture as she stepped into the kitchen and set the bag down. “Would you get some plates down please, detective? The cupboard to your right.”  
Steve put his coffee down and obeyed without comment, smiling just a little. He set the plates out and rummaged for some cutlery while Becca divided out the lasagna her and Bucky’s mother had made, she’d informed him. Bucky had retreated to the couch to grumble to himself and find a movie for them to watch while they ate. It seemed to be ritual. Steve’s smile was refusing to budge so he gave into it; watching the Barnes siblings interact was interesting. Becca was energetic and chatty and treated Bucky very much like the younger brother that he was to her. Apparently it reduced Bucky to a rather pouty teenage-esque version of himself which was a nice change of pace. She fought Steve on who would take Bucky’s plate and she eventually won by pointing out that he had to carry his mug as well. They all packed onto the couch together, Bucky squeezed between them and looking affronted. They ate together, Becca animatedly talked them through her day at work and they half-watched _Fight Club_. Once their plates were cleared Becca bullied Bucky into doing the dishes, turning to Steve once they were left alone on the couch.  
“I couldn’t reach him all day, is he okay?” She asked, her tone softening so that her words only filled up the space between them. Steve glanced over his shoulder but Bucky was rinsing plates and not paying attention.  
“I think he is now, but not earlier. I came by after work when I couldn’t get him on the phone, either. Apartment was dark and quiet, and he jumped me. Punched a hole through the wall—I had to take him to Stark to get his arm fixed.” He bit his lip. He wasn’t sure that he had the right to talk about this, but Becca deserved to know and he wouldn’t be shocked if it turned out that Bucky wasn’t big on sharing. “He calmed down quickly, but…”  
“… He goes to a dark place.” Becca supplied quietly, her brow pinching as she glanced past Steve, smiling sadly at her brother’s back. “He thinks I don’t notice, but he goes far away some times. To where ever he was for those five years, I think. I’m worried about him, but he won’t listen to me or mom.” Steve nodded, resting his hand over hers for a moment.  
“I’m trying to find some answers for you all, I promise. Once we know what actually happened to him, we can get him the right help.”  
“Thank you.” Becca smiled a little brighter again, slipping her hand away to pat the back of Steve’s lightly. “So,” and now her voice picked up enough that Bucky definitely heard. “Are you single? Because Bucky’s really bad at asking.”  
“Becca!” Bucky’s protest didn’t quite disguise the sound of a mug breaking in his metal hand. Becca actually _cackled_ and pinched Steve’s flushed cheeks.  
  
Becca left with the same level of energy she came with, the empty dish in her arm as she pressed a kiss to Bucky’s cheek and then Steve’s and waved to them before shutting the door behind her. They listened to the click of her heels as she descended the stairs and then she was well out of ear shot. Bucky sighed like he was exhausted and flopped down onto the couch, scraping his hands through his hair. He’d washed it recently, it looked soft and didn’t stay where he combed it.  
“God, I’m sorry. She’s a bit much.”  
“I like your sister.” Steve laughed, sitting down next to him. “She’s a lot of fun, and she brings food. Really good food.” That made Bucky chuckle, and Steve felt like he had accomplished something. The moment wound down and Steve watched Bucky’s flesh and bone hand pick at the hem of his shirt.  
“I don’t know what happened before you came by. I… Don’t remember. There’s a gap between when I went to bed last night and when you… stopped me.”  
“Has that happened before?” Steve gently pulled Bucky’s hand away from his shirt so that he didn’t work a hole into the fabric. “Holes in your memory?”  
“Not like that.” Bucky murmured, his head back against the couch but his eyes on Steve, sad and tired. “I’ve never gotten violent like that before… I usually just space out. I don’t know what happened.”  
After a pause, Steve gave into the urge and ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair. It was soft and there were knots in the tips which he carefully worked out. Bucky closed his eyes and relaxed a little. “I think I have a lead, Buck. We’ll get this all sorted out and… If you need anything, you can call me.”  
His eyes opened again and for a moment they simply watched each other and Bucky managed not to flush as he spoke. “Are you single? You never answered Becca.”   
Steve laughed, twisting a strand of dark hair around one finger. “Uh, yeah. Yeah I am.”   
“What about your neighbour?” Bucky lifted his head slightly, his attention on Steve. There was no risk of him going far away in the moment.  
“Sharon? No—she is nice, I mean that, but we just don’t… Click.” He finished, and then he kissed Bucky with his hand still in his hair. Anymore build up and they risked the moment passing awkwardly and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to salvage it. He was thinking a lot, and then he felt Bucky’s lips part slightly and he wasn’t thinking at all. The kiss was soft and slow and innocent even with the gentle flick of Bucky’s tongue against his lip; it didn’t go deeper than that and they parted naturally, slowly, nudging the tips of their noses together.   
“So…” Bucky’s voice was low and his pupils blown when he opened his eyes again. “Do we click?”  
Steve laughed, and pecked his bottom lip quickly. “Yeah, I think we might.”  
“Saw you staring earlier, Rogers.”   
“Buck, you checked me out in the hospital.” Steve scoffed, his eyebrows raised as he watched Bucky grin and squirm.  
“You noticed that, huh?”  
“You were basically drooling.”  
“Shut up, punk.”

 

********

 

Steve had to go home even though every fibre of his body fought the idea. It would have been easy to tangle up with Bucky on his couch and kiss him a few more times and talk to him about more than just what was happening to him, but work called and he didn’t need to cop any flack for coming into work in the same outfit as the day before. He did indulge in a few more kisses in the doorway of Bucky’s apartment, though. Languid, warm kisses that made Bucky laugh at him but it was worth it.

By the time he got home it was late and Steve was ready for bed. He showered and changed into his pyjamas and crawled in between the sheets. The pillow Bucky had stolen the night before still smelled of him and Steve had to laugh at himself for how ridiculous he felt, swapping it out for his usual so he could press his face into it for the entire night.

His phone rang at quarter to six in the morning. Steve groaned and groped along his night stand for it, not even opening his eyes as he answered in a croak. “Hello?”  
“Sorry I woke you—“  
“Bucky?” Steve sat up, reaching to turn on his lamp. He was awake now. “Are you okay?”  
“I remembered something. I think I know where I was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My blog is in serious need of a re-vamp but! I have a tumblr!  
> historicalmarinette.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little warning for mention of blood and vague depictions of gunshot wounds.

It wasn’t true to say Bucky’s memories were missing. They weren’t. They were very much still in his head, lurking below the level of what he was able to comprehend. They surfaced sometimes, for a moment, and he would try his hardest to grasp them and hold onto them, make some sense out of them-- but usually they would just take an hour or two of his freshest memories with them as they sunk back down and out of his grasp, leaving holes in the middle of conversations with his mother or making him question how he had gotten from his apartment to the service station down the road.

Bucky woke up with an address in his head, clear as day. It had come through in a dream he’d had, tangled up with a pair of lips he had been kissing; ruddy, full bottom lip and a pair of bright blue eyes filled with an image of a warehouse, the sound of gunfire cutting through words Bucky couldn’t make out anymore. Except for an address. He had torn through his apartment searching for something to write on and when he found an old notebook and a blunt pencil he had written the address over as many times as it took to fill up the entire top sheet. Bucky didn’t know why he was panting and shaking, but by the time he was done writing the shakes had turned into only a slight tremor in his fingertips and it was only then that he trusted himself to be able to dial Steve’s number.  
The business card Steve had given him over a month ago now was feathered around the edges and had a crease down the centre from where Bucky had folded and handled it over and over again, without ever dialling the numbers or stringing together an e-mail. What would he have said, anyway? He never had any information, Bucky had just wanted to hear him talk or find out if he used emoticons in his e-mail replies. Stupid. This time, he had a reason.  
It wasn’t until he heard Steve’s voice, hoarse with sleep, that he realized the sun wasn’t even up yet.  
“Hello?”  
“Sorry I woke you--” He heard Steve sit up in his bed, the rumple of sheets and the click when he turned on his lamp.  
“Bucky? Are you okay?”  
“I remembered something. I think I know where I was.”  
“I can be there in half an hour.” Steve was getting out of bed now; Bucky listened to his faint, fast footsteps and the sound of a drawer pulling open. “Is that alright?”  
“Half an hour.”

 

There was a moment when Bucky opened the door, freshly showered so that the shoulders of his shirt were dotted with water from his hair, where Steve looked like he wanted to kiss him and then he didn’t. It was a moment of suspension before Bucky stepped aside and let Steve in, who gave him a wide berth but smiled because Bucky had already made coffee for them. It was a task Bucky thoroughly associated with having Steve in his vicinity, he had even tasted faintly of coffee when he had kissed him last night. Bucky had felt good about that, until now. He didn’t know what he had expected, he only knew that he wasn’t getting it—Steve had kissed him silly before leaving the apartment, this morning he hadn’t even pecked his cheek. Dread sunk heavy in Bucky’s stomach, but he snuffed it out with a deep breath and gave Steve a cup of black coffee and the notepad he had scribbled the address all over. Steve took a sip, and then froze.  
“This is in New York.”  
“It’s an old warehouse.” Bucky supplied, slotting two pieces of bread into the toaster. “By the docks. I guess… Whoever had me had a fondness for clichés.”  
“Your plane went down over Russia, Buck— _dammit._ ” Steve dropped the notepad on the counter so he could rub his hand over his face, his eyes squeezed shut.  
“What?”  
“Nothing— nothing I can prove yet, anyway. This address is a good start, thank you for calling me.” Steve smiled and it was the not-grim not-cheerful smile he had given him the first time they had met properly and it made Bucky’s stomach lurch. He turned back to his breakfast, smearing butter over the toast he didn’t really want to eat anymore. It had only been two days, and they had only had a brief moment of kissing. Theirs was not a long drawn out, grand romance that had finally crested only to collapse. They’d had a moment and it had passed, Bucky had no reason to be upset that Steve wasn’t all over him right now. Especially when he had finally remembered something potentially crucial to the truth about what happened to him. He had crashed in Russia and yet he was recalling an American address- there was something so completely wrong with that that Bucky should have been pouring all his energy into figuring out who had done this to him and _why_ , but instead all he was thinking about was the three feet of distance between himself and the detective in his kitchen. After a minute of the only sound being him chewing, Bucky spoke up.  
“I want to go with you to the warehouse, I’ll probably remember more information if I see it.”  
“Bucky, I don’t think--”  
“You can either let me come with you, or I’ll go alone.” Bucky levelled, looking over at Steve as he took the last bite of his toast. Steve frowned shallowly, his mouth tense for a moment. Bucky always looked brooding, but he was bordering on petulant this morning. When his expression didn’t budge, Steve sighed softly and stepped in a little closer.  
“Bucky, I promised your family I would find out what happened to you. I know you like to come across like you’re fine, but Becca has noticed and so have I. You’re not okay. You dissociate, a lot. You go somewhere dark.” He wouldn’t let Bucky break eye contact, ducking into his gaze when he tried. “I want this to be my case. I want to help you which… is why I shouldn’t have kissed you. Don’t—don’t think I didn’t want to, I did. I obviously did. But if I… If we…”  
“You’ll be compromised.” Bucky finished for him, his tone flat. He stood stock still when Steve brushed the back of his fingers along his jaw and gave a shallow nod.  
“I’m already overly involved. I care about you. I care about your family.” Steve looked like he was torturing himself by tucking Bucky’s hair back behind his ear. “It happened fast. Really fast.”  
“Same for me.” Bucky confessed and he was too selfish to move away from the touch. From the moment Steve had appeared above him in the hospital he’d been interested. It was pure attraction first, and stayed that way for a long time since they saw each other so scarcely. But apparently a night of cop movies and Thai food was all it took for Bucky to invest. In his defence, you didn’t often meet a man who kissed you the same day you had nearly caved his head in with your metal prosthetic. “Also, Becca really likes you. I was doomed the moment she decided that.”  
Steve laughed so softly it was mostly just breath. “True. I think she’s largely to blame. You know she’s called me a couple of times at work?”  
“She has?”  
“Mhm. Just to keep me up to date, mostly she tried to invite me over to dinner. I thought it would have been weird if I had said yes.” Steve’s hand was still in Bucky’s hair, twisting the damp dark strands. When he realized he pulled his hand back like he’d been burned. “Sorry. I shouldn’t. I could get pulled off the case, I don’t want that to happen.”  
“I get it.” Bucky conceded, with a great deal of reluctance. “You better figure this out soon, I haven’t even gotten to see you shirtless yet.”  
Steve laughed in hopes that Bucky would, too. “I’m doing my best. Speaking of, I need to call Sam.”

“You want back up for this? You’ve been doing a lot of this on your own, Steve. You got a clear head?” Sam’s voice was low and disapproving of Steve’s plan to check out the warehouse immediately. Steve hadn’t mentioned that Bucky was coming with him; he didn’t like lying to his partner, but Sam wouldn’t allow it and Steve didn’t doubt that Bucky would go alone if he was pulled. He’d be careful. They wouldn’t go in; they’d just observe.   
“I’m just going to do some quick surveillance, Sam. I’ll be fine. Just an hour before I come into work, and if anything comes up, I’ll call you. I’ll text you the address now.”   
Sam let out a low sigh. “I’ll let you know if I hear from Barton. Romanov filled me in on what you requested—you’ve gotta let me in here, man. It’s not like you to go off on your own. I know it’s been a slow case but if you’re right about this then it might get big fast. I don’t want you getting hurt.”  
“Sam, I promise.”   
“Alright. Alright man, I trust you.”  
“Thank you.”  
  
“I didn’t even know you had a car. You walk everywhere.” Bucky was sitting in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, that was parked a block away from the warehouse. Everything about it was excruciatingly mundane, from its silver color to the spotless interior save an old paper coffee cup in the centre console. He had no CDs that Bucky could rummage through, although Steve had been kind enough to let him pick the radio station after Bucky had teased him for listening to talkback radio like an old man. Steve had looked exasperated and grumbled something about Sam saying the same thing.  
“I live close to the precinct, and Sam likes to drive.” Steve shrugged as he killed the engine and sat back. “I need you to listen to me, Buck. We don’t—Bucky!”  
Bucky was already getting out of the car, closing the door on the call of his name. Steve cursed under his breath and got out, catching him by the arm and pulling him back. “Buck, get back in the car. We’re not getting close.”  
“There’s no one in there—look, there’s no traffic.”  
“You don’t know that.” Steve pressed. “I told Sam I would just be observing.”  
“So observe.” Bucky replied, holding Steve’s gaze with a hard set jaw. “… I _need_ to go in, Steve. I need to see what’s in there.” He closed his hand over Steve’s, gently removing it from his arm and stepping up onto the pavement. He didn’t look back as he started towards the warehouse, his hands in his pockets as always but he wasn’t so hunched up. He was walking with his head up. Steve shoved a hand through his hair and cursed again before stepping up onto the pavement and following after him, catching up in a few long strides. Bucky looked up at him with a lopsided smile.  
“You don’t have to go alone. I’m with you until the end of this, but you have to listen to me, Bucky. Stay close. If I say we have to leave, then we leave.”  
“You got it.”

Bucky snapped the padlock off the door with his left arm. Steve watched the metal plates shift and heard the faint whirr of the mechanics beneath them, and then the door was swinging open and he met Bucky’s eyes instead. He drew his gun and went in first, stepping quietly onto the concrete. The warehouse was pitch black aside from the rectangle of early morning light that flooded in through the open door. Bucky hesitated on closing it, looking over at Steve. He fumbled for a moment, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a small flashlight, turning it on. The door was pulled shut and Bucky moved to follow his cautious steps.   
Steve was looking around the warehouse and seeing it for what it was; mostly, empty. The torch light caught on stacks of empty crates and crumbled tarpaulins, but the light only reached out a few feet in front of them and the warehouse was huge. Bucky was seeing everything that was in the dark. In fact, Bucky was in the dark—Steve wasn’t beside him. There was nothing outside of the warehouse. In the gloom he could see the cell he was kept in; nothing but cold bars and a thin blanket. Food that he could barely stomach, and some days refused to. He could see the white washed walls of the med area, where black market doctors had cut off the remains of his left arm and replaced it with the prosthetic he wore now. He had been awake. They had forced a mouth guard between his teeth and he had been bed-ridden with an infection afterwards.   
Once he had recovered enough to stand they had taught him how to use the new limb to break bone.   
How to fire a gun.   
How to take a life.  
And then they had pulled him apart and put him together again, over and over until he didn’t know where he was, who he was. He was called James but it hadn’t meant anything to him. Just a word they used on him when he did a perfect behaviour.  
When he didn’t perform a perfect behaviour he was beaten. He was tortured. He’d had his fingernails ripped off, teeth pulled—teeth, doctors had never said anything about teeth. Did he have fake ones now? – bones broken and then re-broken. No wonder he ached when he was cold. He’d been deprived of food. His cell hadn’t always been so bare- they stripped it when he misbehaved, when he remembered that there was something outside of the building he was being held in.

The wave of nausea was so sudden Bucky felt his feet nearly go out from under him. He was pulled back against someone and the bile rose up in his throat suddenly, burning, until he heard Steve’s voice in his ear. He couldn’t focus on what was being said to him, so he just focused on the rhythm he spoke in and tried to figure out who was panting until he realized it was him. He’d been having a panic attack.  
“We can leave now, we don’t have to stay, Buck.” Steve was whispering against his ear, one hand resting over Bucky’s heart, monitoring his heartrate without giving up an inch of closeness. They were standing in the dark; the flashlight was still in Steve’s hand but it was being held at an odd angle so that Bucky couldn’t see an inch in front of him. He couldn’t see the cell or the med area of the dark stains in the concrete in the gloom.  
Bucky relaxed, in fact he went completely limp into Steve’s hold so that the detective had to adjust his grip to make sure he stayed upright. “No—I’m okay. This is the place, Steve. This is--”

The warehouse flickered, and then flooded with light, bright industrial fluorescents throwing harsh white light on everything Bucky had been seeing already. He had forgotten that the whole area had been caged off with fences. Bucky hadn’t recalled the door they had come through, because he had never been through it before, or even near it. Where he and Steve were standing had been used like an observation point; for someone to watch Bucky’s progress without having to get close. People had always been warned that he was unstable. Bucky shrugged Steve off of him, finding his feet firmly on the ground again. He heard the torch being clicked off and Steve had his gun again, only two steps behind Bucky as he approached the door set into the mesh wire of the fence.   
It opened with only a press of his palm.  
It was a mistake.  
The sound of bullets hitting flesh and muscle was a dull, sickening sound that seemed to roar in Bucky’s ear, worse than the sound of the gun being fired was the sound of the impact and the sharp, pained intake of breath that came from behind him. The second shot went off as Bucky turned, and he saw as if the moment had been held in pause for a second, the look of terror on Steve’s face as the bullet collided with his collarbone. He went down from the pain, not the force of the shot—it was a handgun, devastating but potentially less so at this distance and beside, not even a shotgun right to the chest blew you back like the movies showed. Steve hit the concrete hard and Bucky followed after him, ignoring the pain in his knees. He found Steve’s gun beside him and took it in his left hand, his right hand running through Steve’s hair, down his face.  
“Fuck— _fuck_ , it’s okay, Steve—you’ve just gotta stay awake, okay? I’ll get you out of here.”  
“Don’t,” Steve gasped, grabbing Bucky’s sleeve and shaking his head frantically, his blue eyes wide and glassy. “Don’t go, Buck.”  
Bucky didn’t understand. He bent to kiss Steve’s forehead, smiling down at him as sincerely and unshaken as possible. “I’m not going anywhere, Stevie. I’m right here, okay? I’ll get you out.” He kissed his forehead again before he stood up. He adjusted his grip on the handgun in his left hand, holding it tightly enough that the pressure registered along the metal plates.  
It was a familiar weight, he knew how to rest his finger on the trigger and he knew not to lock his elbow as he rose the weapon and held it out away from him. His vision tunnelled down to what he could see through the sight; five men, not expecting a fight. They weren’t in body armour and they only had handguns, standard issue, what they carried with them for every day protection. They seemed to hesitate about shooting him which they hadn’t with Steve, and that was all Bucky needed.  
Fifteen steady shots, one right after the other. His prosthetic absorbed the recoil and held him steady. The men fell down one after the other except for the last. He didn’t go for the head; he went for the torso, and Bucky filled the man’s chest cavity with every bullet left in the clip. Wasteful. Satisfying. Eleven bullets. He stood still long enough to watch the man collapse to the floor and listen, for a moment. No footsteps, no one else was coming. All he could hear was Steve, trying to breath evenly but the pain was knocking gasps out of his chest and he would start going into shock soon if Bucky didn’t get him out of there.  
Bucky tore through the med area; it was half way through being dismantled, was that what those men were doing here? Didn’t matter—he found gauze and bandages and apologized softly to Steve over and over again as he packed the bullet wound in his thigh and wound the bandage around to apply enough pressure that the bleeding might slow down if not stop entirely. Panic sat in his throat like bile again, burning and persistent but Steve had been shot in the outer thigh—that was marginally better than the inner thigh or dead centre. It was still a lot of muscle being shredded and he could barely look at the mess of his shoulder. Had these men being aiming at all? If they had, had they been aiming only to take Steve down and not kill him instantly? The second bullet had hit bone, shattered Steve’s right collarbone which could be worse than the thigh wound if the shards had travelled, hit something important. Steve needed to be in hospital.  
Steve screamed when Bucky lifted him, one hand gripping his hip and the other braced against his chest to stop him from pitching forward. The sound was raw and loud right against Bucky’s ear, but he endured. He sounded like he was _sobbing_ when he spoke. “Bucky, what did you _do_?”

“What did you **_do?!_** ” Sam Wilson looked like he was going to take a swing at Bucky right there and then; the only thing that stayed his hand was the fact that they were in a hospital and a nurse who had been shuffling past had gone wide-eyed and skittish at the way he rose his voice. He had breathed an apology she hadn’t heard and inhaled deeply to try and calm himself down. Once the hall was empty, though, he couldn’t help but shove Bucky. “Why you were with him? _Why_ were you both in the damn building? He said he was only doing surveillance!”  
The fight had left Bucky a while ago at this point. He stumbled when he was shoved but stayed upright, his eyes fixed on the linoleum floor, hands slack at his side. Steve had been in surgery for three hours. His partner, Sam Wilson, had only just arrived because he’d had to go and clean the mess that was left behind in the warehouse. His fault. It was all Bucky’s fault. He told Sam as much, his voice flat. Sam only sighed and the hand on Bucky’s shoulder was a little kinder this time, pushing down to get him to sit down in the chairs lining the hallway.  
“Dammit. No. Steve’s—Steve’s goddamn reckless. He would have gone in without you, can’t help himself.” Sam sat down heavily beside Bucky, his elbows on his knees, hands held loosely together where they dangled. “Even as a damn beat cop he was always biting off more than he could chew, I don’t even know how he still has a job some days, let alone his limbs.” Sam paused, clearing his throat a little. Bucky flickered him a mirthless smile so that he didn’t apologize for his choice of words. “On the bright side, whatever Stark pumped him with means that he heals up pretty quick. His recovery will be reduced, but I’m sure you realize at this point that he’s not going to be working your case anymore. He’ll be out of commission for a few months at least, and when he’s back he’ll be tethered to a desk until he’s back at a hundred percent.” Bucky hung his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, man. Just telling you what’ll be happening.”  
“Detective Wilson?”  
Sam shot up out of his seat, offering his hand out to the doctor who had come to stand in front of them. “That’s me. How’s he doing?”  
“He’s coming out of surgery now. He’s… Incredibly lucky.” The doctor said, sounding genuinely mind-boggled. “No bone shards travelled into his organs or severed any vital blood vessels, the bullet was still lodged in the bone. The wound in his thigh is only muscle damage. It’ll be a long recovery, but it looks like he’ll pull through just fine.”  
“When can I see him?” The doctor hesitated, but Bucky wasn’t looking up to watch his expression. Sam hurriedly added, “He doesn’t have any family left. I’m all he’s got.”  
“He needs time to recover, you can see him in two hours. It won’t be for long, and he will still be groggy. We had to use a lot of anaesthesia to get him under.”   
“Thank you, doctor. Thank you.”  
Sam sat back down, resting his head back against the wall with a dull thud. He was breathing a little easier, shaking his head as if he were exasperated. “Dammit, Steve.”  
“Am I going to be able to see him?” Bucky asked after a long stretch of silence. Sam met his eye with a frown. “We’re friends.”  
“I’ll see what I can do.”

Sam managed to get Bucky ten minutes with Steve, after he had gotten to see him himself.   
It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Steve looked stark white under the harsh lights and exhausted, but the collection of wires monitoring him and the IV line wasn’t as scary as Bucky had been led to believe from movies and TV shows. It helped that Steve was awake, smiling weakly at him as Bucky shuffled around to the side of the bed, well aware that Sam was only outside of the door, probably watching. He dropped into the chair Sam had pulled up to the bed already, leaning forward to look Steve over.   
“Hey, Buck.” He slurred a little, but Bucky had been warned. “Why do you look like I’m dead?”  
“You could’ve been, Steve.” Steve lifted his fingers a little, trying to make a dismissive gesture with minimal energy. “You could have.”  
“I’m not.” He smiled at Bucky again, and lifted his hand into his hair when Bucky dropped his head onto the bed. “I’m not, m’okay. You know I’m going to recover quickly, Buck.”  
“It’s my fault, Steve—I should have listened. We shouldn’t have gone in. I already knew—I already knew that it was the place.” Bucky cut himself off, rubbing his face into the thin, coarse hospital sheets. He didn’t want to cry in front of Steve like this, it was selfish. It was selfish to be so open about his guilt because it left Steve trying to comfort him when he should have been comforting Steve, who had gotten _fucking shot_ because of him. He felt Steve’s hand move in his hair slowly, a movement that started at the wrist.  
“It’s okay. You had to see it. I understand. Are you okay?” Bucky lifted his head at that, his brow pinched like he was in pain. He took Steve’s hand in his, trying to rub warmth into his fingertips.  
“How can you ask me that when you’re like this, Steve? I’m fine.”  
Steve opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t say what was on his mind. He studied Bucky’s face for a moment, then freed his hand so that he could touch his cheek. “I thought I had lost you.”  
“Me?” Bucky pressed into the touch, tilting his head to fill Steve’s palm with his cheek. “I’m fine, Steve. You’re the one who got shot. Twice.” It seemed to distress Steve more; was he confused? The doctor hadn’t said anything—God, was he about to _cry?_ “Steve--”  
“Buck, you were so far away. I kept calling out to you. You couldn’t hear me.”  
“Steve, what are you talking about? I was with you—I didn’t leave your side until they made me. You weren’t even conscious.”  
“Where do you go?” The question was barely above a whisper. Bucky had to lean in close to catch it, concern painting his features as he ran his hand over Steve’s forehead, checking for fever, but he was as fine as possible for someone just out of surgery. “There was someone else. It wasn’t you. They killed those men, I kept calling for you.”  
“Steve, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“You go somewhere dark.” Steve sounded like he was pleading, it was awful. Bucky shook his head, cupping Steve’s cheeks gently and he kissed his forehead, the bridge of his nose, whatever he could kiss he did. When he spoke again it was against Steve’s lips.  
“Shh, sh. I’m right here, Steve. You just need to rest, okay? Just rest.”  
Bucky managed to bargain his way into staying until Steve fell asleep. It only took an extra three minutes of his time and he breathed easier watching the distress melt away from Steve’s mouth.

It was jarring to realize that it was only early afternoon. Bucky wanted to do nothing but go home and sleep if he couldn’t stay in the hospital with Steve, but it was only a little past two o’clock. The sun was shining. People were at work; kids were in school. He was staring out a window with a cup of bad hospital coffee in his hand when Sam Wilson approached him again, standing next to him with his arms crossed over his chest.  
“So Steve had called in a favour with a friend from the bureau to investigate someone he thinks is related to your case.” He said with no preamble. If he had seen Bucky kissing Steve reverently, he wasn’t going to touch the subject. He was looking at Bucky but Bucky wasn’t looking back. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know anything more about his case. He was happy to let it go. What did it matter? He was back now. He was fine. Steve wasn’t—Steve nearly wound up dead because of his case. Sam pressed on. “He didn’t tell me about it, I heard it from another detective, but Barton obviously caught wind about him being here, so he contacted me instead. With the information.”  
Bucky swallowed and nodded a little. He didn’t want to hear this, whatever it was.  
“Does the name Alexander Pierce mean anything to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're very close to the end now. I think there's only about three more chapters worth, and one of those chapters is kinda just a lil bonus, not necessarily critical to what's going on.  
> I apologize in advance if this chapters is particularly bad for typos, I'm struggling with my wisdom teeth coming through at the moment, and being in pain isn't great for thinking straight. I read it over a few times, but some things just slip through!

Bucky didn’t have to play dumb about the name Alexander Pierce; it truly didn’t ring any bells for him. His captor had never given a name. He did, however, act dumb when Sam had pulled up a photo of the man on his phone. He had stared blankly at the screen, working in just enough confusion that hopefully he was convincing when he’d said that he didn’t know the man. Detective Wilson had sighed out through his nose and put his phone away in defeat.

 

That was three weeks ago. Steve had been discharged from the hospital after a few days; he was healing well enough that he could walk with the aid of a cane, although he didn’t often use it despite Sam, Bucky and Becca all scolding him for it, sometimes all at once, to his chagrin. His collarbone was set and his right arm was going to be stuck in a sling for at least another three or four weeks-- the serum made him heal a little quicker than the average man, but a bone fractured in multiple places was still going to be a lengthy process. He tried not to complain, although Steve was never someone who could sit still for long, he couldn’t do much with his dominate hand out of commission and his leg just as bad. But there were positives. Steve had no family of his own, so he’d been adopted by the Barnes’, and Sam of course. Becca brought meals to his apartment almost everyday and liked to plump his pillows and occasionally refresh his book collection with some of her own. The romance novels were entertaining in their cringe factor. When Bucky visited, which was often, he read the worst passages aloud to watch him squirm and beg him to stop, whinging that Becca had tormented him enough with all her sappy movies and books and daydreams over the years.  
Steve’s care had been taking over by Tony’s private med team. His doctor was Bruce Banner, a personal friend of Tony’s and a man who constantly looked like he was on the verge of killing a man or himself. At least that’s what Bucky thought. But he was good with Steve, patient and gentle, so he could let that strange anger that bubbled below the surface slide. In return, Bucky let Tony poke around his metal arm which he gradually came to appreciate; it was functioning better than he could ever recall with the regular cleaning and the tidying up of the wires that made it functional. It seemed to warm Steve to see them getting along.

But when he and Bucky were alone, his exhaustion and his worry seeped through.

They were sitting on Steve’s couch like they often were, because that’s where Steve had made himself a nest of pillows for when he wasn’t in bed or on his feet. Bucky sat with Steve’s legs stretch out over his lap, one arm along the back of the couch and the other holding a beer. Steve was watching him, not the television.  
“Sam told me your case has gone cold.” Steve spoke out of nowhere, they had been quiet for a long time as they often were on the long days they spent together, killing time. “That Alexander Pierce was a dead end.”  
Bucky licked his lips, glancing down at his beer, swirling the contents around slowly. “Yeah. I just… Didn’t recognize him at all, I’m sorry. I know you pulled strings, although Sam did say that your friend didn’t find anything outright suspicious about the guy.”  
“You’re really not interested in it anymore, are you?” Steve looked sad, although Bucky only looked out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to see disappointment instead. He set his beer down on the side table, resting his free hand on Steve’s ankle, stroking the exposed skin with the tips of his fingers. He sighed, ran his hand up along the top of Steve’s foot and back to his ankle.  
“It’s not… worth it, Steve.” He said quietly, his gaze tracking up Steve’s legs, stopping where he knew the gauze still padded out the wound. “I’m not worth it.”  
“Don’t.” Steve reached up to take Bucky’s metal hand in his, tug it down from where it rest on the back of the sofa. “Don’t do that to yourself. This sort of thing is an occupational hazard. If it wasn’t with you it would have been with someone else. We both made a bad call, it’s my fault too.” Bucky frowned, his lips pressing into a firm line; he couldn’t argue with Steve, and that frustrated him. He wanted to take the blame, since Steve had taken everything else, but Steve was good at making everything make sense even in the face of Bucky’s ever increasing guilt complex. Steve pulled on his arm, and Bucky obliged, moving carefully to make sure he didn’t jostle Steve’s leg too much as he leaned in close enough for Steve to stroke the back of his fingers along Bucky’s jaw, brush a fingertip over the dimple of his chin. In the three weeks they had spent together, they hadn’t kissed the way they had the night before the warehouse, Bucky hadn’t covered him reverent, apologetic kisses like he had in the hospital. The contact wasn’t unusual, though, there had been days when Bucky had climbed into bed beside Steve and shoulder to shoulder they spoke, read, just sat in each other’s presence. When Steve dozed off from his pain meds, which didn’t happen so much now, Bucky played with his hair gently until he woke up again. He liked to think it helped him sleep better. He closed his eyes as Steve explored the plains of his face and pushed his hair back gently. He dragged his hand up Steve’s leg, settling lightly on his thigh.  
“On the bright side,” Bucky murmured, as Steve traced the curve of his bottom lip. “You’re not on my case anymore.” He felt the plume of warm breath on his lips when Steve laughed quietly.  
“No, I’m not.” Bucky opened his eyes slowly, meeting bright blue eyes and long gold eyelashes. He didn’t look as tired as he had, the circles under his eyes not as bruised. “Bucky?”  
“Yeah?”  
Steve licked his lips quickly, nothing seductive about the flicker of tongue, and Bucky felt the shift in atmosphere with a stomach full of dread. “I’m worried about you.”  
“You don’t need to be, Steve. I’m fine.”  
“You’ve been saying that since you arrived in the hospital, and yet you had to leave your mom’s house because you kept waking up screaming.” Steve’s hand fell away and Bucky felt like he was being punished. “Have you… Have you even tried to process any of this? What you remember, all the changes over the past five years?”  
“I don’t remember anything.” Bucky replied, his tone dismissive. “So there’s not a lot to process.”  
“You have dreams. And Bucky, the day I got shot…” Bucky was sighing and trying to pull away but Steve wouldn’t let him. “I watched you kill those men, only it wasn’t you, Buck. I was calling out for you and you didn’t hear me. You were… You were gone, Buck. And it terrified me.” Bucky fought the grip Steve had on him again, but it was only half-hearted. He looked away instead, staring down at the carpet.  
“Are you scared of me?” It was a whisper and he didn’t fight the way Steve pulled his head down to rest on his shoulder, his hand in his hair. Bucky’s hand slipped from Steve’s thigh to brace against the couch edge instead and he let himself be soothed, although the tension never quite managed to melt away.  
“I’m not scared of you. I’m scared _for_ you.” He let Bucky lift his head, meeting his eye with nothing but tenderness, and a long-held concern. “What if there’s a day when you don’t come back?”  
There was nothing Bucky could say to that. He tried, his lips parting for words that weren’t there. He didn’t want to tell him any false promises, that he wouldn’t disappear or hurt him. “If I don’t come back, if I become dangerous, then you have to finish me off.” He couldn’t say it plainly like he normally would. _You have to kill me._ It wasn’t for his sake that he chose softer words. “I would never intentionally hurt you, but it’s happened anyway. Couldn’t live with myself if anything else happened to you.”  
Steve finally kissed him then, gently but with a surge of desperation behind it. Bucky melted into it, his attention only divided enough that he made sure not to lean into Steve’s bad shoulder or unwittingly grab his injured thigh. Steve’s hand was in his hair and the gentle tug on it made his skin tingle pleasantly, and he felt the desperation in the kiss start to override the gentleness, he felt Steve’s lips part against his and the first flick of his tongue like a little demand for Bucky to keep up. His hand moved to Steve’s hip, metal hand on the back of the couch to try and give Steve’s shoulder a wide berth. He pressed in further, taking dominance over the kiss with a drag of his tongue that made Steve make the soft, sweet noise that went straight to Bucky’s groin. And then there was a gasp of pain against his mouth and the charge fizzled out, Bucky pulled away quickly, eyes searching for an injury he already knew damn well. Shoulder, not his thigh. He’d put too much weight on Steve, who looked just a little pale in the wash of pain.  
“I’m sorry.” Steve was already shaking his head, a watery smile lifting the corners of his ruddy lips.  
“It’s fine.” He laughed, it was mostly breath as he rubbed the top of Bucky’s arm slowly. “Just not quite a hundred percent yet.”  
“Rain check, then?” Bucky smirked, lop-sided and too sweet to be his usual.  
“Yeah, rain check. Wanna stay the night, though?”  
“You really gotta ask?”

 

Alexander Pierce was the name attached to the man that had always watched Bucky through the mesh wire of his prison. He was the man who praised him for perfect behaviors before the blood had even dried, and punished him just as swiftly. He never stepped into the inclosure. He was always dressed nicely, like a politician, and just as reluctant to get his hands dirty. But he was still the man who pulled the strings and all Bucky could do was whatever he was told. He was never given a reason, and he was struck whenever he asked and told he didn’t need to know; he didn’t need the motives, he just had to do what he was told. When enough of himself had been destroyed, Bucky had accepted this. He killed the men that were brought to him, sometimes with a single bullet and sometimes slowly, as if Pierce wanted him to examine all the ways a human life could be ended. His metal hand could crush a windpipe with little effort. Enough pressure could burst and push eyeballs deep into their sockets. You could kill a man by breaking his nose and forcing the dislodged bone up into his brain with a swift, upwards movement with the butt of your palm. Bucky knew this. He was good at this, precise with his movements and clean. Mechanical. It really didn’t take that much to kill a human being, so it was good that he was not one-- he was a weapon. He was an asset at Pierce’s disposal, for reasons he would probably never understand. He had not just had his limb upgraded. They had made him harder to hurt, harder to kill. They made him something else entirely.  
And then suddenly they had begun to destroy their work. Recondition him. Hand him back his identity. James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky. He had a family and they were waiting for him. It didn’t make sense, but he had made a mistake. They hadn’t destroyed their work; they had buried it.

 

Bucky woke with a sharp gasp, pushing himself up onto his elbows. He was disorientated in the dark. The sheets were too soft and sweet smelling and the weight in the bed beside him was so wrong, so out of place. He was alone.  
“Bucky?”  
_Not alone._  
Not in his cage.  
He blinked in the dark, looking over at Steve, who had to sleep on his back, propped up by pillows. In the blue tinged gloom of Steve’s room, Bucky could make out sleepy concern. He’d taken pain killers before bed and they made him groggy, it was a miracle he had been woken by Bucky’s gasp. Maybe he’d been making more noise than that. “Are you okay?”  
He rubbed a hand over his face and caught his breath before lying back down, turning onto his side to kiss Steve’s shoulder through the soft cotton of his shirt. “I’m okay. Just a dream, go back to sleep.” Steve mumbled something incoherent but worried, reaching his hand up to touch Bucky’s cheek, but he didn’t need to be told twice to sleep. He was out, his hand dropping away.

 

Bucky was gone in the morning. Steve had opened his eyes hoping to catch Bucky still sleeping, looking peaceful and beautiful- because he was- but instead he saw disturbed sheets and a pillow that no longer held the shape of where a head had been resting. Bucky had been gone for a while. He called out for him; maybe he had gotten up to make breakfast, had let Steve sleep for as long as he wanted, but his alarm clock told him that it was only a little past nine and since Steve hadn’t had work in weeks now they had gotten into the habit of sleeping late. Bucky wouldn’t usually be up yet. He got up carefully, the cold of the morning forcing him to grab the cane by his bedside so that he could hobble out of his room, into the living room but there was no signs of anyone having been in the space recently. No smells of cooking, the radio hadn’t been turned on and switched from Steve’s radio talkback to Bucky’s music channels-- they alternated. His apartment was empty aside from himself, and an awful, dark feeling gathered up in his chest and refused to move past his deep, slow breaths.  
Becca had bought Bucky a cellphone because she was sick of having to call Steve to get a hold of him, and then she and Steve had teased him mercilessly for having to text like an old man because his metal arm wasn’t recognized by the device’s touchscreen, so he held it one hand and typed with the other. Steve had never been more grateful for Becca’s frustration. He hit call on Bucky’s contact in his phone, staring down for a moment at the smiling image of Bucky he had used on his contact card. The phone rang. And kept ringing, until he reached Bucky’s voicemail which started with him grumbling at his sister to shut up in the background and then his grumpy, but amused voice informing the caller that they were better off texting or calling him again than leaving a voicemail, because he could never remember how the damn thing worked. Steve tried anyway.  
“Hey Buck. You weren’t here when I woke up, just want to make sure everything’s okay. Call me back, okay? Bye.” He ended the call, and started a new one straight after, only this time he was calling Becca. She answered after three rings and Steve listened to her fumble a little and judging from the sound of fabric scraping, she was pressing the phone to her ear with her shoulder while her hands were preoccupied with breakfast or work, maybe. Steve didn’t know her schedule.  
“Hi Stevie!” She had picked up the nickname from Bucky and ran with it. She was older than both of them, and Steve was pretty sure she’d had to check herself more than once before she accidentally called one of them ‘ _kid’_ . Nicknames were in her nature. “How are you?”  
“I’m good, I just woke up.” He replied as calmly as he could. There was no point in alarming her, especially because nothing could be wrong. “I was just wondering if you’ve heard from Buck this morning. He stayed the night, but he was gone when I woke. Seemed to have been gone a while.”  
Well, he had failed not to alarm her. There was a silence across the line aside from a little rustle of cloth near the phone. He could practically see her frown, it was a lot like Bucky’s. “I haven’t seen him, he hasn’t come over. Have you tried the apartment?”  
“I tried his cellphone, but it went to voicemail.”  
“Well, he is always forgetting to charge the darn thing.” Becca supplied, her sunny optimism not failing her yet. “Why don’t you try the apartment? If he’s not there, maybe he’s just gone out to get breakfast or something. I’m sure he’ll be in touch, it’s almost impossible to keep him away from you.” She laughed and Steve might have flushed if a sense of foreboding wasn’t eating him alive.  
“Yeah, yeah I’m sure you’re right, Beck. I’ll let you know?”  
“That’d be great. Thanks, Steve.”  
“No, no. Thank you. Have a good day.” She wished him the same, and then the line went dead and Steve had to take a deep breath for composure’s sake before he found Bucky’s home number and hit the call button. It rang and rang, and no one answered. Steve felt his stomach knot and sat down too heavily on the couch that he jarred his collarbone and hurt his thigh. He groaned and sat back a little slower, tipping his head against the back of the couch. He stared up at the ceiling, and tried to not think about the worst case scenario.

Lunchtime crawled by and Steve had called Bucky ten times and hadn’t gotten a single answer. He only left a few more voicemails, because there wasn’t much he could say anymore aside from ‘call me’ in a desperate tone. Steve was an active worrier. He hadn’t sat on the couch all morning, watching the sun slowly manage to crack through the clouds and filter in through the windows. He’d made himself breakfast and gotten changed out of his pyjamas, which was tedious without someone’s help. He’d done his best at straightening out his bed covers with only one hand and loaded the dishwasher, but he lived cleanly and there wasn’t much to keep him occupied.

Just past two o’clock, there was a knock on his door and Steve thought his heart was going to burst with how suddenly it had quickened, and he cursed the fact that his leg was slowing him down today, that he had to use the cane and hobble to the door. He swung it open, ready to see Bucky standing there, smirking, a bag of takeout in one hand and his dead cellphone in the other, being held up as proof of his innocence; he hadn’t been ignoring calls.  
It wasn’t Bucky. It was Sam and Natasha, who was holding a bag of takeout in one hand. She raised a fine, dark eyebrow up at him because his exuberance was very clear. “Expecting someone?” She asked with a touch of her usual dry sarcasm.  
Steve was too crestfallen at first to respond, and then he stepped out of the doorway to let his friends in, reluctantly closing the door behind him. He sat before he answered them, watching Natasha divvy out burgers on the coffee table like she lived here. “I haven’t heard from Bucky today.”  
If he had said it in any other tone of voice, his friends would have cheerfully wailed on him for having it so bad. But his tone was sober and bleak and made Sam and Natasha pause and spare one another a glance. “When was the last time you saw him?”  
“Last night. He stayed, but he was long gone before I woke up. He’s not answering his phone and his sister hasn’t seen him.”  
Sam put his burger down, untouched, and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “Do you think he’s in trouble?”  
“Yes. I can’t think of where he could have gone, and for him to not tell anyone or wait until I was up to leave just feels… Wrong. Something’s wrong.” The utter belief in his friends’ faces simultaneously relieved Steve and made him feel worse. He didn’t want to be dismissed just because he was running off a gut feeling. Sam and Natasha trusted his gut instinct, though.  
“We can’t make a missing person report yet, but we will if he’s still a no-show after the twenty-four hour mark.” Sam assured him with a nod and reached to pat his knee lightly. “He’ll be alright, Steve. Now eat something.”

 

A week passed. Bucky hadn’t been heard from the entire time; no one had seen him, and he was an easily distinguishable person. He was probably the only person in the world with an entire arm made of exposed metal. But no one had seen him and Steve had heard his voicemail message so many times it echoed in his head even when he didn’t have his phone to his ear. He wanted to go out and search for Bucky himself-- he was healing fast, as Doctor Banner had predicted, he’d shaved off a week or two worth of recovery on his collarbone and his leg wound had resisted infection and he didn’t have to use the cane as often, but it was definitely going to be the slower of the two. But he still wasn’t strong enough to spend everyday out on the streets, searching old warehouses and always looking over his shoulder in hopes of catching Bucky behind him, glad to be noticed by him. Sam wouldn’t let him do it. He’d managed to get out for a couple of afternoons but Sam always dragged him back home and told him to quit exhausting himself when there were plenty of people already looking. People that hadn’t been shot recently. It took a much firmer word from Natasha to get Steve to sit still, and even then it only lasted a couple of days.  
He couldn’t calm himself down no matter what he did. He was terrified for Bucky. Terrified that he’d been taken away again, from his family, that it would be five years or longer this time before they saw him again if they even saw him at all. And Steve had only started to scratch the surface of his feelings for him, he didn’t want it all to be cut down before it even got to be realized. It was a selfish thought, but it was the truth. He just wanted Bucky back.

Becca was trying to put on a brave face for Steve’s sake and for her mother’s sake, but she was frequently getting lost in thought. Steve saw both of them a lot; they invited him over for dinner but there was little conversation to be had. Becca stared down at her plate and her mother looked like she hadn’t slept for the entirety of the week and ate in tiny portions. Steve pushed his food around with his fork but found his appetite had abandoned him shortly after Bucky had left. He kept using the word _‘left’_ because the idea that Bucky still had some will left in him made Steve sleep a little better. He hadn’t been taken, he had left.  
He helped Becca with the dishes once they had collectively decided that they couldn’t do this tonight. He packed the leftovers into containers and put them in the fridge so that Becca wouldn’t have to go to so much trouble tomorrow. She walked him to the front door and Steve hugged her to him as best he could with one arm and kissed the crown of her head.  
“He’ll come home.” Steve whispered to her and she gave him a weak smile and squeezed his arm gently before letting him go, closing the door only once he had reached the pavement and the cab waiting for him at the curb.

 

Steve’s apartment was dark. He had left before the sun had gone down, so he hadn’t thought to leave even a lamp on for when he got home. The sudden flood when he turned the main lights on in the living room seemed harsh and too bright to his tired eyes. He almost missed it, he was so tired. He dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and took his shoes off and then he looked up, and Bucky was there. Across the room, sitting in an armchair with his head bowed and his hands clasped between his knees like he was in prayer. His hair hung like a curtain, blocking his face from Steve’s view. He was in the same clothes as the day he’d left. They weren’t as dirty as they should have been if he’d nothing else to change into. His shoulders sagged as if they were under a great deal of pressure and his knuckles were white.  
Steve was frozen, staring across at him waiting for his image to crackle and fade like a cheap illusion. But he didn’t. Bucky stayed sitting there, silent and still and tense. He didn’t look up at the sound of Steve’s deliberately noisy steps, slow as they were. He didn’t want to startle him, he didn’t know what it took for him to go from being Bucky to someone else, and he looked rough.  
“Buck?” He called softly, fighting the urge to kneel down so he could look at his face. He was at an advantage standing. He knew exactly how many steps he needed to take to get to his room and to his gun if this person sitting in his living room wasn’t Bucky. For now he would assume it was. Bucky moved slowly, like there was something dragging on him, pulling him back but he was fighting it as he lifted his head to look at Steve. He looked broken and exhausted, his eyes rimmed red and bruised underneath, the hollows of his cheeks just a little more sunken than what was natural for him. This was Bucky. And he was hurting.  
“Steve.” His voice was a rasp from disuse and the sound brought Steve down to his knees, placing his hand over Bucky’s. They opened up beneath the touch, his fingers curling around Steve’s loosely, like he didn’t have strength to hold any tighter.  
“Where have you been, Buck? I was so worried-- are you okay?” He spoke gently, almost like the way one would speak to a child but he didn’t feel like he could speak any other way. Bucky looked like a child, his eyes wide and bewildered. He opened his mouth to speak, but shook his head and reconsidered. After a moment, Bucky let himself slip out of the armchair so that he was on the floor in front of Steve, who’d shifted back to accommodate him but otherwise stayed still. He let Bucky drop his hand and leaned into the touch of Bucky’s hands on his cheeks, didn’t flinch at the cold metal. He closed his eyes and let Bucky stroke his cheekbones and trace his jawline and didn’t open his eyes again until he heard the unmistakable sound of him breaking that came in the form of choked sob. Steve pulled him to his chest, arm wrapped around his head like he could protect him from whatever it was tearing him apart, or like he could hold him together. He dug his fingers into his hair and kissed his crown as Bucky sobbed into his chest, his arms tight around Steve’s waist. He ignored the sore, tugging sensation in his leg and his collarbone was so close to healed that he didn’t care if Bucky jostled the sling. Even if it was a fresh break he wouldn’t have cared, though. Into his hair Steve shushed him, kissed him, comforted him as best as he could murmuring softly to him that he would be okay; he was safe. Steve wasn’t going to let him go.  
There was no way to track how long it took for Bucky to calm down, the ache in Steve’s leg didn’t count because he got sore quickly these days. He held him anyway, kept still until Bucky’s shoulders stopped heaving and instead just had a slight tremor to them, like the rest of his body. Steve’s hand ran down to his back, rubbing in small circles while his breathing slowly started to regulate. When Bucky pulled away he kept his head bowed long enough to wipe his face of the tears, but there was no point in denying them. His eyes were puffy and his lips dry from his gasping attempts at breathing.  
“Are you okay?” Steve asked again, brushing Bucky’s hair back from his face. It was a little greasy, but Steve hadn’t cared when he’d had his face buried in it and he didn’t care now, either. Bucky shook off a little more tension with the gesture, closing his eyes and licking his lips quickly.  
“I’m… Yeah, I’m okay.” His voice was even rougher now, and he cleared his throat between words to no avail. “Can I shower?” Steve wasn’t going to press him to talk right away, not while they were both sitting on the floor and Bucky looked like hell week.  
“Yeah, of course, Buck. Go, I’ll get you something to eat.” Bucky helped him to his feet before he stepped away, heading for the bathroom while Steve headed for the kitchen.  
  
Bucky looked a little more alive after a shower and a change of clothes. Steve had lent him sweatpants and cotton t-shirt that he filled out just as nicely as Steve did. His hair was a towel-dried mess that Steve had half-heartedly combed with his fingers before setting a plate down in front of him. A grilled cheese sandwich was the best he could do since he had barely done any grocery shopping all week, and Bucky only cared that it was hot and thanked him around a mouthful of cheese and toast. It got a little laugh out of Steve that made Bucky smile lopsidedly. He leaned against the other side of the kitchen counter and let Bucky eat in peace, not caring if he was going to teased for the way he just watched him. Bucky either didn’t mind or hadn’t noticed with how involved he was in his meal and Steve wondered if he should have made two instead of one. Bucky gulped from the glass of water Steve had set out for him, and Steve wondered when the last time was that he’d had a decent (ish) meal and something as simple as a glass of water.  
He had a lot of questions, but right now didn’t seem like the time. Bucky was back and that was all that mattered right now, he was here with him and for a little while Steve was going to be selfish. He hadn’t even considered sending Becca a text to let her know. It could wait until the morning. It was late anyway, and he could imagine that Bucky probably just wanted to sleep.  
Bucky pushed the plate away when he was done, looking even more alive now that he had eaten, warding off some of the sluggishness from before. “Why are you over there?”  
Steve didn’t say anything, he just moved around the bench so that he was beside Bucky rather than across from him and Bucky turned in his seat. His knees were on either side of Steve’s thighs and he wrapped his arms loosely around Steve’s waist, bowing his head to rest against him. Steve sighed softly, making a second attempt at combing the tangles out of Bucky’s damp hair. “I was so scared for you, Buck.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“No,” Steve slipped his hand down along Bucky’s jaw, catching his chin to tilt his head up. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. It wasn’t you, was it? That left that morning.” Bucky closed his eyes, his forehead furrowed. “... Was it?” Another moment passed, and then Bucky shook his head, a small but certain gesture. Steve kissed his forehead until the crease between his eyebrows relented. “I’m just glad that you’re back, Buck. Are you hurt anywhere?”  
“No.” He replied quietly, sounding exhausted. “They didn’t hurt me.”  
“What did they want? Did you escape?”  
“I don’t know.” Was all Bucky could offer as a reply, and Steve didn’t press it. He leaned down and kissed Bucky softly, feeling the catch of his cracked lips against his own. It was tame, the heat didn’t crash over them and make them frantic. They kissed slowly and with only slightly parted lips brushing against one another, and broke away when they needed to breathe properly. There was a long moment where they were just looking each other over, searching for something in each other and they both seemed to find it. Steve kissed him again, just a little peck no matter how much Bucky tried to make it more.  
“Let’s go to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :*


	6. Bonus chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter!  
> This is pure self-indulgence and doesn't aide the plot, but the boys needed some time to themselves. This is nothing but a PWP chapter, so if you're not interested and want this fic to stay clean, do not read on!  
> 

The sheets were still warm when Steve reached out to feel the empty space beside him, the weight of Bucky’s body still leaving an impression in them but that didn’t stop the panic from going from a spark to a flame in his chest. He threw off the covers and found the floor under his feet so fast that it was almost disorientating. He’d gone from asleep to wide awake and his thoughts were racing as he checked the room before heading to the door. His mouth ran dry and his hands had the slightest tremor in them at the thought that Bucky had disappeared  _ again _ , taken right from his bed without Steve stirring.   
He froze when he pushed the bedroom door open, squinting at the lamplight that wasn’t all that bright aside from in comparison to the gloom of his apartment at two in the morning. In the light he could see movement, Bucky. Leaning against the kitchen bench with a glass of water in his hand and a half eaten sandwich on a plate in front of him. His hair was messy from sleep and the sweatpants Steve had lent him hung low on his hips.    
The panic drained out of Steve so fast he thought he would cave in on himself. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe heavily and sighed, shaking his head.  _ Stupid _ .   
“You should have told me if you were still hungry.” He was relaxed enough now that he laughed at the way Bucky jumped a little, glancing up at Steve and smiling. He probably looked plenty sleep-ruffled, too.   
“Did I wake you up?” Bucky drained the last of the water from the cup and put it in the sink, seeming disinterested in the rest of the sandwich now that Steve was present. “I tried not to.”   
“No, no.” Steve assured him, “I just… woke up. “ Bucky stepped out of the kitchen alcove, his bare feet quiet on the wooden floors as he wandered over to Steve, slipping an arm around his waist and turning his face up to him.   
“You were worried when I wasn’t in bed next to you, weren’t you?” He asked even though he already knew the answer and Steve sighed out through his nose.   
“Just for a moment. I only just got you back.” Steve pulled him closer, turning to rest his back against the doorframe. He ran his hand across Bucky’s shoulders, rubbing warmth into the bare skin, feeling the mottle of scars on his shoulder where his prosthetic was connected. He’d seen them before, when Tony worked on his arm, but he’d never touched them. They were smooth and taut, paler than his healthy skin. But Bucky was beautiful even with his imperfections, his body well maintained and his face well balanced, with strong features but a sullen delicacy that never fully went away and sometimes made him look much younger than he was, even though he wasn’t all that old to begin with. Bucky stood still and quiet against Steve and his gentle touches, the lamp light casting shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and hooded his eyes.    
“Nothing could take me away from here tonight.” That held Steve still for a moment, then he ducked down to laugh against Bucky’s mouth, feel it twist into a grin.   
“That’s a good line.”   
“Is it?” Bucky’s tone smacked of smugness. “I hadn’t tried it before.” And then he kissed Steve, eating his reaction whole and greedily. When Steve had suggested that they go to bed earlier, he hadn’t thought Steve actually meant to  _ sleep _ , although he hadn’t fought the idea. But they were both awake now and Steve looked good, smelled better and was warm against Bucky’s chest and pliant against his mouth. He let Bucky flick and run his tongue over the seam of his lips until they parted, tipped his head and leaned in to make up for the height difference so that Bucky had all the control, with one hand firm on the back of Steve’s neck while the other rested on his waist. He’d stepped in closer, nudged one thigh between Steve’s and was very aware of the effect that had on the man. When Bucky pushed up between his legs, he got a mouthful of Steve’s groan.    
“We-” The stutter was the most satisfying thing Bucky had ever heard. “We should go to bed.”   
There was no confusion about what he meant this time, and Bucky was happy to peel Steve away from the doorframe and instead lead him back to the bed, sitting him down on the edge so that he finally had the height advantage. He carded his hands through Steve’s hair, cupped his jaw as he kissed him with a little more tenderness, not so much heat. He wanted him, there were just a few logistical issues.    
“What about your arm?” Steve had a simple solution for that. He took the sling off, tossing it up onto the nightstand beside the bed and flexed his hand a few times, glancing up at Bucky through the gloom.   
“It’s practically fully healed-- Don’t worry about it.” Well then, Bucky wasn’t going to. He didn’t need to be convinced as he gleefully pulled Steve’s shirt up and off him, pushed him back against the mattress and crawling right after him. He was finally getting to see his glorious, enhanced body up close and for more than a second between Steve changing in and out of clothes. Every inch of him was firm under Bucky’s flesh and blood hand, and he spread his fingers and ran his hand down his chest and stomach with reverence, only stopping when he hit the waist of his pyjama pants and then Bucky stroked up his side instead.    
“Christ, are you even real?” He breathed and he watched Steve laugh with a whole new level of appreciation, every slide of muscle making him want to keen like a damn virgin. In his defense, it had been five very long years since he’d been this close to another person with the intent of intimacy; longer still since he’d been so close to another man. It wasn’t that he had a preference, but when he’d been twenty-two and cocky, girls were easy catches. And in his defense again, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever been so emotionally invested in a lover before, and the way his affection heightened it all was a dizzying, pleasant surprise.    
Once Steve’s laugh died off, he seemed to become bashful under Bucky’s gaze, smiling but averting his gaze, not entirely sure what to do with his hands until they found purchase on Bucky’s hips, his thumbs rubbing the exposed skin in slow, tight circles. Bucky tilted his hips into the touch and pressed a kiss to the centre of Steve’s chest so he could work a lazy track up to the dip in his clavicle and then press a little more insistently against the skin of his neck, his lips parting for teeth and tongue. It got a breathy reaction from Steve, his hands faltered against his skin and his breath hitched in his throat more than once. He wasn’t passive; his hands roamed, first up along Bucky’s waist and along his shoulders, catching again on scars but smaller ones this time, and a small collection of freckles that ran along his spine like a constellation. When his hands came down again they slipped under the waistband of his pants, fingers splaying over the curve of his ass and squeezing. It was hot and unexpectant and made Bucky gasp against Steve’s ear which he then kissed and found knew enjoyment in the sounds he could summon from Steve if he paid the right amount of attention to the hinge of his jaw. When he lazily made his way back to Steve’s lips, a little kiss-bruised and so soft, he stayed there for a long time. Steve’s hands wound into his hair and were it not for Steve’s uninjured thigh settled high between his own, Bucky could have stayed there all night just kissing him because he was allowed to. It was enough of any award or payback for what he’d been put through, but Bucky was just as happy to take more. He rocked his hips back, in one slow grind against Steve’s thigh so that he couldn’t ignore his arousal through the thin fabric. Steve’s hands stayed in Bucky’s hair as he retraced his kisses along his chest and lower still, and when his lips touched fabric he simply peeled it down and out of his way until Steve’s pyjama bottoms were shoved down past his hips and Bucky made a purr of appreciation that he hadn’t been wearing boxers underneath them. Steve’s arousal was very obvious, Bucky’s mouth so close to the head of his cock that Steve felt every plume of warm breath, and how it made him twitch with need. Bucky dragged his tongue up the length of Steve’s cock before sitting up and taking care of Steve’s pants entirely, tossing them aside. Tentatively, he touched the bandage on his thigh, his gaze questioning when it turned up to meet Steve’s.   
“It’s okay.” He assured him, stroking Bucky’s thigh with a firm hand. “I’ll let you know if it hurts. Come here.” Bucky obliged, moving back up the length of Steve’s body to nudge their noses together, a gesture that was incredibly endearing and  _ cute _ . “Hi.”   
“Hi.” Bucky grinned, his hands never leaving Steve, always stroking somewhere; his chest, side, jaw. “You’re kinda hot.” Steve laughed, his cheeks flushing although Bucky could only judge from the heat radiating from them. “Are you blushing? Has no one ever said that to you before?”   
He cleared his throat, combing back Bucky’s hair only to have it fall forward again, tickle his cheek. “Not exactly…” He confessed, “My work ethic doesn’t usually leave a lot of room for dating.”   
“You really dropped the ball then, huh?”   
“Yeah, about two seconds after seeing you.” Steve’s breath was warm on his cheek when he laughed. “Sam saw it. Knew you were going to be trouble.”   
“I never thought he liked me very much. Bet he didn’t think I’d be  _ this _ much trouble, though.”   
“Buck.” Steve’s voice turned soft, quiet so that it filled only the space between them. “I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”   
He kissed Steve like he might never get to again, hands in his hair to pull him into it. Steve kissed him back with just as much intensity, finally fed up that Bucky still had clothes on that he dealt to his sweatpants, yanking them down as far as he could and Bucky kicked them off the rest of the way. WIth all of him finally exposed, it was Steve’s turn to worship, running his hands up the back of Bucky’s long, firm thighs and just as firm ass, squeezing because it made Bucky laugh, and then he stroked his fingertips over his entrance and got a completely different reaction; one infinitely better even if it was small. A sharp inhale, the way his back arched and his arousal pressed hot against Steve’s thigh. He murmured against his ear where to find what they needed; bottom drawer of his nightstand and it took some willpower for Bucky to pull away to retrieve the lube and a condom, leaving them in arms reach. The first, Steve grabbed straight away, kissing his thanks along Bucky’s neck as he slicked his fingers and gently stroked them against Bucky’s entrance again. He didn’t need to coax him into relaxing; Bucky kissed him slowly, sighing into his mouth when Steve added a little more pressure, and he keened with the first intrusive finger, catching Steve’s bottom lip between his teeth. Steve dug his fingers in his hair, stroking his fingertips along his scalp while Bucky adjusted and relented his hold on his lip. Then Steve slowly thrust the single digit and he keened all over again, rolling his head to the side and letting his mouth drop open. Every push and pull made Bucky react, and it wasn’t until the reactions softened that Steve tested a second finger, to which Bucky tilted his hips back and all but demanded it. Steve was happy to oblige, and watched enthralled at the way the pleasure washed out over the discomfort on his face, the low light catching on his kiss-bruised lips and fluttering eyelashes. No matter how keen he was though, Steve insisted on taking his time, humming patience against Bucky’s throat as he slowly thrust his fingers into him. His free hand rested on Bucky’s hip, feeling the way he rolled back against him. He was so responsive, murmuring into Steve’s hair that he wanted more; that he wanted  _ him _ , his metal fingers buried in the sheets. Steve could hear the shift of metal plates when his grip tightened. Steve had brushed someplace particularly sensitive that had made Bucky moan and his hips snap back to keep the friction hard, and Steve thrust harder, curling his fingers which made Bucky’s back arch and his breath run out.    
“ _ Fuck, _ Steve-!” It didn’t matter how long it had been since Steve last had someone in his bed, he recognized a cry of ‘ _ if you don’t stop I’ll cum’ _ when he heard it. He squeezed Bucky’s hip hard and slowly removed his fingers, stroking the curve of his ass instead.    
“You okay?” His voice was hoarse, smug. Bucky scowled unconvincingly, since he was panting and more than a little flushed.   
“It’s… Been a while.” He huffed, but let himself be coaxed down for a kiss, relaxing into it gradually, laying his body over Steve’s with the softest purr of appreciation when he felt Steve hard against his hip. “And you.”   
“And me?”   
Bucky huffed against his cheek and rolled his hips just to hear Steve’s breath hitch. “You. I’m really into you, so you’re not helping.” He felt Steve grin and drag his hands down to Bucky’s hips, and even after weeks of bed rest he was strong enough to push them both up into a sitting position, their hips locked together.    
“I like you, too.” Steve said, with such tenderness that it didn’t sound like a juvenile confession at all. It slowed Bucky down for a moment, licking his lips before he kissed Steve and skimmed his hand along the bedcovers, finding the condom he had left there earlier and, feeling no need to be subtle, he pressed it into Steve’s hand. He took the hint, breaking the kiss only long enough to get it dealt to before pulling Bucky back in and lifting him by the hips. “ _ Ready _ ?”   
“God, yes.”

They went slow, at first, barely giving an inch of space between them, mouths kissing whatever they could reach and hands gliding along smooth backs and tense shoulders. Steve had actually sworn when he’d first felt the tight heat of Bucky around him, who was breathless and missed his chance to marvel at the accomplishment. Bucky set the pace and Steve easily met it, rolling his hips up into him. The kisses only stopped when Bucky pushed Steve down against the bed, to watch the muscles of his stomach work and his flushed chest, not yet gleaming with sweat but starting to labour with his breathing. His flesh and blood hand was pinned against his chest, keeping Steve prone and in awe of the sight above him. Bucky, staring down at him with hunger burning in his eyes, riding him  _ hard _ . He didn’t seem to be aware that he was unravelling Steve with the way he rolled his hips up in a swift, smooth rhythm, moaning on each upwards stroke. He scraped his hair back with his metal hand, keeping his fingers buried in the dark strands so they stayed out of his face and Steve couldn’t recall ever seeing something so simple yet so arousing in his life. It made his mouth water, but he didn’t want to bring Bucky down to kiss him when he looked so good. So Steve grabbed his hips instead, squeezing, dragging one hand down to Bucky’s cock, damp with pre-cum, and wrapped his fingers around the shaft, pressing his thumb under the head just to hear Bucky whimper once or twice before matching the pace of his thrusts with the stroke of his hand.   
They were both starting to unravel then, backs arching and their grips on each other becoming vice; Bucky pressed his nails into Steve’s chest and Steve returned the favor to his hip, running welts into his skin before he grabbed his ass instead, guiding his thrusts as they started to lose their rhythm in the rush to their climax. Bucky came first, spilling over Steve’s hand and his own stomach, his head thrown back and body singing with tension until it washed out of him entirely. Steve followed within moments, still reeling when Bucky fell down onto his chest, fucked out and boneless, grinning all the same. Steve was panting underneath him, wrapping his arms around him once he’d pulled out with a soft groan.    
They simply lay there for a while, listening to their breath gradually regulate and the energy drain from the room. Steve pressed his face into Bucky’s hair, stroked his back until he felt a shiver and then he reached around for the blankets, pulling them over them both. It was with a trail of kisses that Bucky moved to lie beside Steve rather than on him, head resting on his shoulder.   
“Tired?” Steve murmured. Bucky stayed quiet, looking up at sleepy blue eyes with a breathy laugh that seemed a little hollow. Steve frowned, lifting his head. “Buck?”   
“I just…” He looked away, closing his eyes. He was exhausted, his week catching up with him, or maybe just the sex. He pressed in closer and relaxed when Steve kissed the top of his head. “I want to stay right here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do NOT take your arm out of the sling if you break your collarbone, no matter how damn close it is to healing smh Steve. I did it all the time when I was a kid and now my collarbone is a wonky shape, but it honestly didn't hurt at the time.   
> Anyway, thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness, this chapter got pretty long in comparison to the others! And look at that, second to last! This fanfic is almost over.  
> There's descriptions of violence in this chapter, none of it terribly graphic but this is a heads up to people who can be a little squeamish about it. You'll see it coming.  
> Enjoy!

“You should tell your sister that you're back.”

“Later.” Bucky whined into the pillow, only barely awake in the late morning. Steve had been up for at least half an hour, with Bucky peacefully asleep beside him, warm and still naked from the night before. He'd deserved to sleep so Steve had let him, gently combing out the knots in his hair and pushing it back from his smooth forehead until he felt the inevitable signs that he was stirring.

It was selfish, but he had no intention of arguing with Bucky about Becca. If they had a night and a day entirely to themselves then he'd be happy, even if all they did with the day was watch cartoons and eat cereal. In fact that sounded ideal. “She'll come over if she finds out.”

“We'll tell her later. We should get up, though.” Steve watched Bucky flop onto his back in an over dramatic flourish, frowning up at him as if Steve had made a suggestion of pure evil. He couldn't hold it when Steve was so close their breath mingled, and he let the frown be kissed off his face with no resistance. “I'll make breakfast. You can shower.”

 

They struck the deal and Steve had gotten up, pulling on his sweatpants from the night before and Bucky had headed to the bathroom without bothering to cover up. The grocery situation wasn't much better than it had been the night before, so they were having omelette for breakfast with a side of toast but before Steve collected the ingredients, he turned the coffee machine on and leaned against the kitchen counter, sighing, stroking his hand over his injured collarbone absently. It was sore in a dull sort of way, and he knew he'd have to put the sling back on once they'd finished eating. Taking it off in the first place wasn't wise, no matter how much it would have slowed them down last night. Still, Steve didn't often regret things, and he certainly didn't regret anything they'd done, no matter the aches and pains and collections of marks on his neck.

Bucky had some as well, Steve noticed when he emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, caught in the view of the kitchen archway as he slipped between rooms. He came to Steve dressed, feeling the cold in sweatpants and a hoodie he must have dug up from his closet, pressing his solid weight into Steve’s side as he tended to their breakfast. 

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Is it almost ready?”

Steve hummed in the affirmative, gently nudging Bucky off him to bring down two plates. “Go sit, I'll bring it to you if you take our drinks over.”

 

They ate together, cartoons on as Steve had planned, and Bucky got up and poured them both a second cup of coffee and grabbed a Tramadol for Steve, who was still resisting being confined back into a sling. It was any other day they had spent together, conversation scarce and silence comfortable. They were always in contact in some minimal way; shoulder to shoulder or knee to knee. Bucky rested his head on Steve’s shoulder or Steve stroked the inside of Bucky’s wrist. Just a normal day after hell week, and yet Steve’s chest was tight with the sense of foreboding, a deep sense of  _ it’s not over yet _ hanging over him, heavy and relentless.   
He was lying to himself about things. About how broken Bucky had been last night- he wrote it off. Not broken, he’d just been tired and shaken. They had made love desperately because they’d wanted each other for so long-- it wasn’t because it felt like they would never get the chance to again. There wasn’t a pendulum swinging above their heads. He was imagining the tension in Bucky’s shoulders and there was nothing wrong with them putting off telling anyone that he was back. It was selfish but harmless; they would tell them tomorrow. There would be a tomorrow for them.   
They both jumped when Bucky’s phone rang. It was in Steve’s room, on his nightstand. It was charging although Bucky had turned it off when he’d gone missing, so it hadn’t actually been dead. The tinny ringtone cut over the sound of the TV, high and loud because Bucky had a habit of leaving his phone on random flat surfaces and if it were on silent for even an hour it would have been forgotten about and lost. He didn’t move right away to answer it. The tension in him surged and Steve felt it, too. The feeling of dread. They met each other’s eye for a moment, and then Bucky got up and headed into to Steve’s bedroom to answer it. Steve didn’t follow, but he stood up, rubbing at his collarbone while he waited just a little anxiously to catch some snippet of the conversation or for Bucky to come out with the phone pressed to his ear, grousing at Becca down the line. For the tension to disperse. But when Bucky stepped out of the room, phone still pressed to his ear, Steve didn’t try to fool himself into thinking it was anything but bad news.

Bucky was different, right down to the way he stood. His shoulders were squared, his chin lifted. The anxious need for him to take up less and less space was gone; he stood commanding, his expression dark but oddly blank. When he walked it was with purpose, it was military. He didn’t see Steve. He was walking to the front door with a low voice speaking into his ear, Steve caught it only in snatches and it wasn’t loud enough that he could make out what was being said.

He called to Bucky but he knew it was futile. Bucky wasn’t listening, but Steve couldn’t just let him walk out so he followed him out into the hallway of the building, grabbing his arm before he reached the stairs.   
“Bucky, wait!”   
There was a moment when their eyes met and Steve thought he saw a glimmer of recognition, but it was gone as quickly as Bucky yanked himself out of Steve’s grip. The phone call was ended, and Steve watched Bucky slip the phone into the pocket of his sweatpants.. The decision to put the phone away seemed just as purposeful as his footfalls as he started down the stairs.   
“Buck, wait! Wait, don’t go!” Steve threw more of his weight behind his movement this time, grabbing Bucky by the shoulder and swinging him around to slam into the railing of the stairs, gathering up the fabric of his hoodie in his hands to stop him from toppling backwards entirely. “Fight it! You don’t have to do what they say!”   
He felt the flare of recognition again, the second where Bucky’s gaze softened and his mouth turned down at the corners, parting just a fraction as if trying to let a word out. Steve pressed closer to him, trying to pin him down and bring him back. “Buck.”   
The first sound wasn’t words. It was a strange rasp, as if Bucky hadn’t spoken in years and years, and Steve felt hope bloom in his chest-- it didn’t have to be like this. They could go back to his apartment and watch TV and make love slowly the next time, because Bucky wasn’t going to leave. But then Bucky’s face closed off to him again, turned grave and blank and with enough strength to make plaster flake and dust, he threw Steve back against the wall and broke into a run down the remaining flight of stairs. His words were barely caught:  _ my name is not Bucky. _

Steve was winded, and he felt the sharp ache through his shoulder travel right up through his teeth and his head and then through the rest of him like a shockwave that made it harder still to catch his breath, but he couldn’t let Bucky just slip away from him. So he forced himself to move, his jaw locked from how hard he gritted his teeth as he took the stairs two at a time, trying to make up for lost ground and ignoring the sick tearing feeling of the bandages coming away from his leg wound. He reached the ground floor a little shakily, in time to watch Bucky step out the front door and head towards a sleek, black chrysler idling at the curbside. The car door swung open for him at the same time Steve threw the building’s front door open, lurching himself forward to grab Bucky by the wrist and feel the strength there that dragged him across the pavement by a few inches as Bucky climbed into the car. Steve adjusted his grip and moved fast to get in the way of the door being closed. He was met with that dreadful deadpan expression again, cold eyes staring up at him with, possibly, a touch of impatience.   
“Buck, you don’t have to do this!” It was a desperate hiss as Steve fought to keep his grip on smooth metal plates that were fighting against him. “Bucky!”   
From the far side of the passenger seat, Steve heard a tired, irritated sounding sigh. “James.”   
Bucky’s head jerked slightly to one side at the sound of the name, his gaze still holding Steve’s, and then he swung his arm out and threw Steve aside with ease and closed the door the moment he was clear of it. The car peeled off into traffic, and then it was gone.

Steve could only stand there and watch, panting, clutching at his injured shoulder while the pedestrians on the street skirted around him. They were from Brooklyn, they had seen stranger things.

 

Steve returned to his apartment in a daze. The TV was still on, playing cartoon reruns, and their mugs were on the coffee table next to their plates, but it was like he had walked into an alternative universe where everything was almost- but not quite- the same. The sunlight was a little duller, the room a little colder. Some vague, eerie feel lingered, like something had happened, as simple as everything being shifted a couple inches to the left that resulted in the entire atmosphere being wrong.   
Of course, the answer was simpler than that. It wasn’t some complicated prank. The apartment was exactly how Steve had left it, but Bucky was gone.  _ He was gone _ . He had climbed into a car where Alexander Pierce sat in the passenger seat beside him and had driven away, and there hadn’t been anything that Steve was able to do fast enough to get him to stop.    
It wasn’t even really Bucky who had gotten up and left, anyway. It was someone hollow and dangerous when under the wrong person’s thumb, walking around in Bucky’s skin, locking him away in the dungeons of his own mind. It sent a sick feeling through Steve, and then he went and got his phone from the his bedside table and called Sam.   
“Bucky’s gone.” There was a long pause of pure confusion on Sam’s end of the line. Steve sat down heavily on the couch and rubbed at his shoulder. The Tramadol was kicking in and starting to stint some of the pain-- he’d only taken it about fifteen minutes ago. Everything had happened so fast. Bucky was gone.   
“What…. What do you mean, man?” Was all Sam could say, the concern thick in his voice.   
“He came back, last night. I got home and he was here, in the apartment. He wasn’t okay but I… He wasn’t okay, and now he’s gone again. Pierce took him, Sam, but I can get him back.”   
“How do-- damn it, Rogers. Start from the top and don’t be vague about it. How do you know it was Pierce? How are you planning on getting him back?” Sam was at work; Steve could hear the creak of his desk chair as he shifted in it. Steve couldn’t think straight and wasn’t sure if it was the heartbreak or the painkillers.   
“Pierce called him, and it must have been… Some kind of trigger, he stopped being Bucky. Pierce told him to leave the apartment and go outside. He was in the car waiting for him. I tried to stop him, Sam. He told me his name wasn’t Bucky; he only responded to James. Pierce called him that.”   
“Makes sense. It’s his birth name, Pierce wouldn’t know his preferred name unless Bucky told him. But what is Pierce doing with someone like Bucky?” Sam asked, although the question wasn’t necessarily directed at Steve, he was just musing aloud. Steve could hear him clicking a pen up and down over and over.   
“He had him all those years, Sam. He made him dangerous, I’ve seen him kill.” Sam reminded him quietly that he had, too; the aftermath at least. Headshots, precise and clean, aside from the one man who had had the rest of the clip emptied into him. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about it, not right now. A nauseating feeling washed over him but he didn’t want to-- couldn’t-- address his fears on Pierce’s motivations right now. Bucky was all that mattered, everything else came later. “Whatever he’s doing, it’s not good. But Sam, listen. Bucky has his phone on him. He put it in his pocket, I watched him. He didn’t turn it off-- I think… I think he knew what he was doing. I think he wants me to find him.”

“Is there any point in me telling you all the damn reasons why you shouldn’t do that alone?”   
“Talk to Natasha. See if she can track the GPS on his phone and let me know. I have a feeling I know where he is already, but.” Steve sighed out through his nose. “I’ll wait and see what she comes up with first.”   
It was the best Steve could do for his partner. It was a promise that he wasn’t going to rush headlong into something on his own; he would use his team and get some information first, at least. Sam knew that there was no way to stop Steve from doing this on his own, although he was going to start up the argument anew once they had an idea of where Bucky was. The last time Steve got involved, he got shot. Twice. Sam knew him well enough to know that Steve didn’t have a plan A let alone a plan B. He had tunnel vision and Bucky was at the end of it.   
“Alright, man. I have your word on it. No playing hero this time, Nat will get it done as quickly as she can anyway, you know that. We can start building a case against Pierce if you give us the time.”   
“Sam…”   
“I know. I know, you want him back. It’s alright, if we get him back then we’ll have an even stronger case against him, for whatever the hell it is he’s trying to do. Hopefully Bucky will be able to shed some light.”

Sam was trying to slow Steve’s thoughts down with logic, steer him in the direction of thinking like a detective, not a heartbroken man, and he didn’t have the energy to play along so he simply hummed in agreement and said his goodbyes. 

 

Steve took another Tramadol and managed to sleep through the afternoon, albeit a little fitfully, but there wasn’t anything else he could do, being conscious and waiting for a phone call was liable to drive him mad, and Bucky had thrown him around enough that if he wanted to stand a chance at getting him back, he needed to sleep to recover some strength. Steve was preparing for a fight, no matter how badly he didn’t want it. With luck, it wouldn’t be with Buck.   
Sam woke him, sitting up on the back of the couch with a hand on his chest, shaking him gently until he stirred. Steve could only imagine that out of the two of them, he looked the most exhausted, but only just. Natasha was behind him, her arms crossed over her chest loosely and her hair sitting in its natural curls today. Steve smiled lopsidedly at them and sat up on the couch, making room for them both. He bit back the grimace when he moved his injured leg. Natasha smoothed his hair for him as she came around the couch to sit, and Sam slid from his perch on the back of the couch onto one of the cushions instead. Steve was wedged between them, but it was a comfort as much as it was a reminder that he wasn’t  _ doing anything _ . Not even Natasha’s eyes on the marks Bucky had left on his neck last night was enough to distract him from the fact. She picked up on it, patting his knee before she dug her laptop out of it’s case and opened it on her lap.   
“Good news?” Steve’s voice was thick with sleep.   
“I don’t think you even need me to show you the location, huh?” Natasha replied in her dry sarcasm, but she was going to do it anyway. Sam was quiet and observant, as he often was, frowning a little when he seemed to key onto the fact he wasn’t in his sling, but that was an argument for another day. Steve wasn’t going to listen at a time like this, but he did smile apologetically to his best friend and partner. “Here, Steve.”   
His attention turned to the screen again, and he simply nodded. Natasha was right, his gut had told him that he would find Bucky at the warehouse where he had been shot weeks ago now. It wasn’t where they had taken him for the previous week, but Steve couldn’t help but feel like he was being lured. He would take the bait. “That’s where he is. Thanks, Nat.”   
Of course, he didn’t think it would be that simple with his friends and colleagues involved. They weren’t just going to pack up and leave him to it now that his suspicion was confirmed. “Alright. Mr. Stark is waiting for you to go pay him a visit, so go get ready.”   
“What?” He whipped his head around to look at Sam, who levelled him with an expression that simple read:  _ do not fuck with me _ , but gently.    
“You got shot twice a little over a month ago. You’re not doing anything until he’s let his doctors poke at you and do whatever they can to help. I know you’re gonna do this no matter what I say, so I’m not gonna stop you, but I am gonna reduce the collateral damage as much as possible.”   
Natasha was packing away her laptop again and everything about her read that she was onboard with Sam’s plan. He swallowed and then stood up, trying to hide his limp as he moved into his bedroom. He changed slowly, against his will, and put his sling back on before he was ready to go.

 

Stark Tower was the same as it always was. Bright and busy, with Stark Industry employees milling around the bottom floors and Tony waiting to greet Steve, Natasha and Sam in his private medlab. Doctor Banner was there as well, and for the first time Steve allowed himself to see him the way Bucky always insisted he was: a man on the verge of breaking someone or himself, held together loosely by a sense of duty and sarcasm even drier than Natasha’s. Steve sat himself down on the bed waiting for him and Tony guided everyone but the doctor out of the room, not as chatty as usual. Steve was dragging around a heavy atmosphere with him and people were catching on.   
There wasn’t much Banner could do for him; he redressed his leg wound which he’d aggravated the hell out of, filled the area with local anesthetic because whatever Natasha and Sam had said made it clear that everything was going to be a quick fix, enough to get him mobile and then he’d be back for the real deal once this was done. Banner checked his collarbone over, and he was reluctant but agreed that it was healed enough to be out of the sling. He warned him that it could easily get rebroken, and Steve politely acknowledged the fact and remained determined to do what he had to. When it was time to leave, Tony clapped Steve on the shoulder and only had one thing to say to him. “His arm doesn’t have many weak points, but if you can jam the plates then it’ll seize up and be nothing but a bludgeon. Getting smacked with it won’t be much fun, but it won’t break  _ your _ bones, at least. I think.”   
“Thanks, Tony.”

 

The drive to the warehouse was quiet and tense, with Sam focusing on driving and Natasha divving out radios and handing Steve his gun and holster. No one said anything about his focus levels even though he had managed to forget his weapon. Steve was hoping he wouldn’t have to use it, but he put it on anyway, along with the radio, shrugging his jacket on over both along with his badge clipped onto the breast pocket of his button-down. It was a new jacket; his brown leather jacket had a bullet hole in the shoulder and was covered in blood. The new one was still a little stiff, not yet worn in. Becca had bought it for him and he tried not to think about it.    
Sam pulled up half a block away from the warehouse and scrubbed a hand over his face before twisting in his seat to face Steve in the back. “You know the rules, Rogers. The moment you think you need help, you call for back-up. We’ll be right there with you.”   
“I know, Sam. I don’t actually enjoy getting shot, so it won’t happen again if I can help it.” Steve tried a wry smile. “I know I’m not alone.”   
“Be careful, Steve.” Natasha’s smile was small and tense, before she leaned between the two front seats to kiss his cheek. “I hate cleaning up after you boys.”

 

The warehouse had been stripped of everything but a few crates and old furniture, tarpolines and other random bits of debris. It had been cleared as a crime scene weeks ago but apparently before the cops had gotten there, the place had been stripped clean of anything damning. The lights were on; bright, an eye strain to step into now that the sun was starting to sink down behind the shadowy old buildings of the area, the salt in the air from the water nearby turning all the wood silver and the hinges, door handles and locks rusty. Bucky was an uncharacteristically missable figure in the flood lights, standing slumped, crumbled in on himself like he might topple over any second, staring at his feet. He’d been given a pair of boots but otherwise he was still dressed in Steve’s sweatpants and hoodie. He looked like all the fight had been taken out of him. Alexander Pierce was the opposite, dressed in an expensive suit and shoes that shone in the light. He stood with his hands tucked behind his back, a smug and sympathetic look on his face that made Steve’s stomach knot. He stood beside Bucky like he was holding his leash, and like he had been expecting Steve.   
“Good evening, Detective Rogers.” He greeted, his voice filling the space easily. He had spoken to enough crowds in his career that it was easy for him. Steve stayed close to the walls on instinct, even when they offered no cover- there was no cover to be had here- moving cautiously in towards Pierce and Bucky. “I knew we’d be seeing you soon. Isn’t that what I said?” The last sentence was said to Bucky, who’s head jerked oddly to one side. The light shadowed his eyes, there was no way to know if his gaze ever lifted off the floor.   
“What did you do to him?” Steve’s voice filled the space in a different way. It was clear and direct, not big. He was moving into the open reluctantly, drawn to Bucky, who didn’t seem to know he was even there. He wanted to reach him, to touch his face and call his name in hopes to get through to him. Kiss him, hug him, hold him. He couldn’t look at him because Bucky was currently a distraction, and a dangerous one at that. Steve focused on Pierce instead, warily. “Why are you doing this to him?”   
Pierce laughed and it was startling. It wasn’t some brittle laugh, it was genuine, he was finding pleasure in this somehow. He clapped Bucky on the shoulder as his laughter fizzed out and Bucky’s knees seemed to buckle under the weight for a moment. He caught himself. Pierce didn’t seem to notice or care. “What do you think this is, detective? One of your cop movies? This is where I, the villain in your story, lay out my evil plans for you? I’m not the bad guy here, Rogers. I’m making a small sacrifice for the greater good. You must understand that.”   
“It’s not your sacrifice to make!” Bucky didn’t flinch. He just swayed on the spot like a man in a trance and Steve’s heart broke a little more. “You didn’t just destroy his life, you destroyed his family’s. You didn’t have the right. And for  _ what _ ?”   
Pierce was quiet for a drawn out moment, his expression looking just a little perplexed as he looked over at Bucky, eyebrows raised. “You think  _ he _ is my sacrifice?” He tsk’d, shaking his head as if judging a passing comment and nothing more. “I do worry about who they give badges out to these days. James.” Finally, Bucky came to life. His head snapped up and his shoulders squared, his stance immediately shifting to something disciplined and militant. Steve’s stomach dropped; it wasn’t an improvement. Pierce was retreating, confident that Steve’s priorities bent in his favor. “Kill him.”

 

It wouldn't have matter how slowly it happened, Steve was never going to be ready for the first swing. Bucky’s flesh and bone hand connected with his jaw and his legs went out from under him with the force of it, his vision going blank for a disorientating second. He found his focus again when he watched Bucky reach across himself and with a couple of hard tugs, tear off the sleeve of his hoodie to expose his metal arm and eliminate the chance of the fabric catching in the plates. Steve numbly registered this as a bad thing, among a plethora of other, worse things that he had to distance himself from otherwise he wasn't going to survive the next five minutes and he was going to lose Bucky for good. He was designed like a super solider, he was a well trained officer of the law, and he could throw a punch. He had to start acting like it. He fumbled, pulling out the radio shoved in his breast pocket and listened to it crackle for a second before speaking into it low and quick, even though it seemed Bucky wasn’t going to make another move until Steve did something. He loomed over him, the torn sleeve in his hand at his side and his eyes focused on him but he didn’t move. “Sam-- Pierce is fleeing out the back of the building. I’m with Bucky.” He kept it short, shoving the radio back into his pocket before he got his feet back under him and immediately had to dodge the next swing. He side-stepped, grabbing Bucky’s metal arm and yanking it back hard, before swinging his elbow up into Bucky’s jaw-- he was silent, but his head snapped back in sickening sort of way, and his bottom lip split open at the corner. Steve exhaled hard at the sight, and tried not to feel guilty. “Buck, I don’t want to fight you.”   
The force Bucky put into slamming his arm into Steve’s chest knocked the breath out of him, forced him to release his grip and stumble back, lose ground, and he kept losing ground as he parried and ducked each swing of Bucky’s fist until he swore he heard a growl of frustration, and Bucky lunged forward and knocked them both to the ground. The crack of Steve’s head on the concrete made his vision blank out again for an alarming couple of seconds. When it came back Bucky was on top of him, his metal arm pulled back ready to strike with such force Steve was sure it would kill him. He heard plates shift and saw the tension in Bucky’s shoulders when he snapped. “ _ Fight back! _ ” His flesh and blood hand had gathered up the front of Steve’s shirt, ready to lever him up into the blow and shaking with the same tension that held his shoulders. But he wouldn’t move. Steve stared up at him, his hands up by his head and useless; he wouldn’t fight him. Not when Bucky looked so pained and conflicted. He wasn’t staring into the blank gaze he’d seen earlier. His eyes were wide and  _ terrified _ , his teeth gritted. He was fighting himself, the Bucky Steve knew and the person Pierce had tried to change him into.    
“Buck…” It was barely a whisper, only pitched loud enough to fill the space between them and nothing more. Bucky flinched, but held still otherwise, as Steve lifted his hands up to his face and gently ran his fingertips down his cheeks. “I’m not going to fight you. You can stop this. We can get up and walk away from all of this right now, he has no power over you anymore.”   
Bucky’s head jerked in that strange way that it did whenever Pierce addressed him and he squeezed his eyes shut. Steve was hopeful that he hadn’t imagined the way he pressed into his hands right before he smacked them away hard and got up. Bucky was agitated, his hands coming up to his hair but not catching in it, and he took a single pacing step before he swung back to face Steve, still unable to step past the cusp and actually do him harm.   
He ran instead. Bucky bolted, heading straight for the door they had entered through all those weeks ago, disappearing into the dark immediately. The sun had set completely and the moonlight was bleak tonight. Steve didn't think, he simply found himself on his feet and running after him within seconds.

 

The streets were empty in this area of town. It was nothing but old warehouses, anyway. Even during the day it wasn’t lively. At night it was dimly lit and uncharacteristically quiet for any part of New York, but it did make it relatively easy to follow Bucky. His footsteps echoed just long enough to give Steve an idea of direction, and when he got close enough the low light caught on the metal of his prosthetic and gave away his position. They had run for four blocks and Steve’s leg felt like it was going to give out on him; no amount of local anesthetic was going to stop him from feeling the pain of the wound tearing open, it only just took the edge off. There had to be blood staining his pant leg but he couldn’t stop-- Bucky was  _ right there _ . His Bucky, terrified and confused and so many other things that Steve couldn’t understand right now, not yet. He just had to catch him and calm him down and bring him home, and they could unravel the rest from there.    
Bucky turned down an alleyway and Steve followed, skidding to a halt with five feet between them. Both of them were labouring for breath. Bucky’s hair was wild and in his face, his hands in fists at his side. The alleyway was a dead-end; he couldn’t go anywhere unless he went past Steve and Steve had no intention of allowing that to happen. He seemed to know it.   
“Bucky, please. We don’t have to do this, we can just go home.”    
“I’m not…” Bucky was shaking his head, his hands burying into his hair. “I’m not Bucky.”   
“Yes, you are.” He moved in closer, cautiously closing the distance between them down to only a couple of footsteps. “Your name is Bucky, it’s the name your sister gave you when you were a kid and you’ve used it ever since. Whatever Pierce did to you-- we’re going to fix it.” Steve lifted his hands up slowly, reaching for Bucky’s shoulders and he recognized it as the wrong decision two seconds too late. He threw Steve into the wall with his hand around his neck, holding him up off the ground high enough that not even his toes scuffed against the concrete. He spluttered, gasped around the grip on his throat, his fingers scrabbling over metal uselessly. He dug one heel into Bucky’s stomach to brace himself and kicked hard with his other leg; it didn’t get him free, Bucky fell back and took Steve with him so that they both hit the ground hard. It was graceless and vicious; Bucky slammed his fist into Steve’s ribs over and over until they both felt something give under his skin and Steve couldn’t scream, he just choked on his breath and  _ he had to get Bucky to stop immediately _ , but before he could pull himself together enough Bucky threw him off of him, like he weighed nothing to him. Steve rolled, his right side burning hot with pain and _ God,  _ there was definitely at least one rib bone where it shouldn’t be-- he wasn’t moving fast enough. Bucky was on him again and every time his knuckles connected with Steve’s jaw it sent him reeling, stars bursting in his vision and he tasted hot metal on his tongue as his lip was burst open and the inside of his cheek shredded against his teeth.   
Steve fumbled, his body not listening to him properly, but he found his gun in its side holster and wrapped his fingers around the grip. He didn’t want to use it. He would not shoot Bucky-- but that didn’t make it useless. He slammed the butt of the grip right into Bucky’s temple and he wheeled back fast with a snarl. He fell out of Steve’s line of vision so Steve flopped down onto the concrete, curling his arm against his injured side protectively, letting the cold seep up through his clothes and chill his back. It was relief for his pounding head, and in fact his entire body. He was burning up, his leg wound searing, definitely bleeding through his trousers and his broken ribs were making his breath strange and shallow. His mouth kept filling up with blood which was then catching on the back of his throat.    
It felt like he lay there for an hour; it was probably only a handful of seconds before he rasped out Bucky’s name, turning his head slowly although that didn’t make it feel any better, but he couldn’t see Bucky in the dark.    
He felt him instead. Bucky’s boot came down on his arm hard and the pressure only mounted, his forearm pinned under the treads until the pain ran through to his hand and his grip on his gun started to slacken-- Steve was screaming for him to stop, he hadn’t even realized as he rolled himself onto his side and grabbed for the gun with his other hand. He was blind, it was too dark to be confident in his aim, but Steve took the shot anyway.

 

Bucky was silent, somewhere beside Steve in the gloom of the alleyway, in an isolated part of the city, in an alleyway that looked no different to the rest around them. Steve’s breathing was rough and rasping against his throat, catching when he felt the sobs try and raise and then fall away again. He’d dropped his gun, he didn’t know where it exactly it was but it wasn’t all that far. If he were brave enough to reach his hand out into the dark he might find it. Or he might find Bucky, instead, and he couldn’t will himself to do it. Not yet. He felt nauseated and dizzy with pain, although that was too weak a word to truly describe the feeling. His ribs were broken, and a fractured arm wouldn’t surprise him. His face was swelling into one big bruise with every second that ticked past and his leg-- Steve couldn’t recall how much it had hurt to be shot, but it was hard to imagine it was worse than this.

The only thing broken worse than his body was his heart. He had never wanted any of this for Bucky. From the moment he had seen him in the hospital, Steve had wanted nothing but happiness for him. No matter what sins he committed in life he had already paid his due with the five years that had been snatched away from him. Just gone, a hole punched through his life. Five years away from his sister and his mother, who loved him  _ so _ much. Bucky deserved to be back with them, working on making his life whole and fulfilling. He didn’t deserve this.    
Steve finally moved and it felt like trying to sit up with the weight on the earth pressing down on his chest; grief and exhaustion and pain. He groped blindingly over the ground. He felt his gun under his fingers, and then moved past it. He felt different metal; plated, the roundness of a forearm tapering down to a wrist. He stroked up to an elbow instead and along the top of the arm until he reached something mangled and wet; Bucky’s shoulder. Where Steve had shot him. His hand was shaking as he reached further still, felt Bucky’s neck under his fingertips and he was reluctant to press down, to see if there was a pulse or not. It was so faint, barely a flutter under his cool skin but, his fears qualmed marginally, it  _ was _ a pulse. Bucky wasn’t dead. A breath that Steve hadn’t even realized he’d been holding released in a whoosh as he doubled over to press his face to his chest-- heartbeat. He could hear his heart beating even though it was faint as well. His breathing was shallow but even.    
He hadn’t killed him. The last of the stress ran out of him and Steve was ready to collapse right there, in the dark alleyway, bleeding and broken, because Bucky Barnes was alive.

From his breast pocket, he heard a static crackle and then Sam’s voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, one more chapter to go.  
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you're enjoying it, especially if you're seven chapters deep and still going!


	8. Chapter 8

When Bucky opened his eyes, it was dark. He couldn’t see an inch in front of himself, not that he seemed to be able to move his hands up to check anyway. In fact he didn’t think he had a body at all at the moment; he was dreaming and helpless in it. He had no body to move with, the dark was thick and oppressive. He was just…. Him, whatever he was. A conscious mind and nothing more, caught in some sort of limbo. He’d been here before. In fact, he came here quite often and never of his own volition.    
This must have been that dark place that Steve and Becca were always referring to, that place that he went that swallowed his memories whole and made the people around him frightened. Bucky had never been aware of it before, not that there was much to be aware of. It was just dark and quiet, in the kind of way that a room seems quiet when you simply adjust to a constant white noise. He wondered where the rest of him was.    
He wondered where Steve was.   
_ Steve. _ Bucky remembered the last time he saw him vividly; it was in the warehouse, and Steve had touched his face and had tried to coax him out of this strange place, back into his body. He’d been ordered to kill Steve but he hadn’t wanted to, and he had no way of knowing right now if he’d stopped himself. He could only assume  _ he _ hadn’t been stopped in the most literal manner, unless this was the afterlife and if it was, it was bleak and about as much as Bucky deserved. It was more bearable than waking up alive and well and finding out that Steve Rogers was no longer in the world, in his life.    
Bucky tried again to find some more solid form of himself in the dark, trying to curl his fingers or tense up his toes but nothing happened. He wanted to wake up-- how long had he been asleep? There was no concept of time in this place, no stars coming and going to differentiate nighttime from daytime. Bucky wanted to wake up and find out what he had done to Steve, because even though he didn’t currently have a stomach, he felt that churning mix of guilt and dread in him that told him he had done something awful. It was a feeling he wore around him at all times lately.   
The first voice to interrupt the dark fell into it like a rock into still water. It was far away from Bucky, if there was a concept of distance in this place, and he caught only the depleting ripples of it. “She’s fine… Patched her up… Can go home…”    
The second voice landed right on top of the last but Bucky only seemed to hear an echo of it, not a real word or even a tone. Just a noise. The first voice came back again and it was making Bucky’s-- head? Hurt no matter how strange and muffled it was. Somehow it was still deafening. “Also fine…. Will need to be observed… Relax, Steve.”   
If Bucky had a face in this strange place, he could imagine his eyes flying open wide at the name echoing through the space. Was this a real conversation? Was he hearing something from outside of him? Surely his broken brain wasn’t so cruel as to make up this sort of thing, give him a little shred of hope that he hadn’t killed Steve like he’d been ordered to. He was sick but surely not-- not  _ that _ sick. He’d never tortured himself, there had always been other people to do that for him.   
The next voice felt like it landed right in the centre of him, loud and clear and impossible.   
“What about Bucky?” It was Steve’s voice, clear as day to him, as if he had moved in closer as he spoke and he could had wept-- if he’d had eyes he would have. The other voice was still a little distant, but clearer. This was definitely happening outside of him-- he was somewhere with Steve and now that he could hear clearer, Dr. Banner. Medlab, maybe. Steve was alive enough to be talking.   
“He’s heavily sedated… Won’t be in pain when he wakes up…”   
_ Not asleep, _ Bucky wanted to reply, wanted to shout, wanted to startle himself out of this dream so he could look up and see Steve, alive. He wanted to whimper when he heard Dr. Banner tell Steve that he needed to get some rest--  _ please stay, please stay and wake me up so I can see you.  _ But the voices turned into nothing but noise again, the fading edges of a wave.   
The silent dark resumed, and then there wasn’t even that anymore.

 

Steve didn’t like to admit it, but he was really good at getting people to give him what he wanted. He was too stubborn to budge, so people were generally forced to yield. Even Tony couldn’t always resist, and it only took Ms. Potts raising an eyebrow for any resolve to cave. So when Steve had said that he wanted to be in the same room as Bucky, the argument was brief. He’d barely left his side; only the excuse of surgery was enough to get him to step back. Once Bucky was out and in recovery, Steve had returned to his side immediately and hadn’t moved.    
Steve was in a bad state. His collarbone was broken, again, and his arm was fractured. He had two broken ribs-- had only just missed out on a punctured lung-- intensive bruising along his right side and his leg wound had been reopened. He’d nearly lost some teeth from being punched in the face so many times and if it wasn’t for the large dose of painkillers, it would have hurt to talk for his swollen jaw. It was bad.   
Bucky was worse, but at least he was sleeping through it.    
Steve had shot three times. He had a good aim but he’d practically been shooting blind; he had aimed for joint of Bucky’s shoulder and metal arm, trying to disarm it and knock the fight out of him before he knocked the life out of Steve. He’d managed to get his shoulder twice, the third bullet had scraped his side and left a deep gash. There had been so much blood by the time they were found and light was shone on the scene, and Bucky’s arm-- it was mangled at the shoulder, a gruesome mash of flesh and bone, blood, warped metal. Steve had already been woozy from head injuries, so it was impossible for the sight to make it worse, but it gave it a good try.   
There had been no way to save the arm. They’d removed it, picked out the debris in his skin and Tony had safely sealed off the socket that was no longer flesh and bone. The gash on his side had stitches holding it together and was packed with gauze and bandages. He’d bled a lot, but he was doing okay. He’d had a transfusion. Dr. Banner had assured him Bucky would wake up fine, high enough on pain killers not to really feel a thing but that didn’t stop Steve from ignoring the bed that had been supplied for him and dragging a chair up to Bucky’s. He was going to be there for him.

Three hours passed.

Bucky woke with a whimper that made Steve’s head jerk up from where it had been resting against the sheets. He caught the fluttering of long dark eyelashes, the flash of eyes that looked silver under the harsh light and the parting of chapped lips. “Buck?” Steve reached up, only to be reminded that one hand was in a sling and the other was in a cast, only the tips of his fingers free of it-- he couldn’t touch Bucky unless he wanted to face Dr. Banner’s wrath for taking his arm out of his sling again. He tried not to be audibly frustrated. Bucky’s eyes were glassy and searching and Steve could live without touching him  _ for now _ . “Bucky.”   
“Steve?” His voice was hoarse and thick and Steve’s frustration crested again that he couldn’t pour him a glass of water. He’d call for a nurse soon, for now he leaned into Bucky’s line of vision, his brow creased but a shaky smile on his lips.    
“I’m right here. I’m okay.” Steve whispered, and clumsily brushed the tips of his fingers over his jaw, trying not to bump him with the cast. “You’re okay.”   
“Stark tower?” Bucky rasped again, blinking owlishly but his gaze was slowly starting to come into focus.   
“That’s right. We’re taking care of you.” Steve soothed and Bucky frowned in a slow sort of way.   
“Taking care of me?” He murmured, tracking his gaze slowly down what was visible of Steve’s body. He still couldn’t exactly see straight, but the sling and cast were impossible to miss. “What about you…?” Steve smiled a little and shook his head.    
“I’m fine. Get some rest, Bucky. I’ll be here.”

 

When Bucky woke a second time, it felt less like he was lying at the bottom of a swimming pool. He was still sluggish, but he was at least blinking at a normal rate. Steve was in the chair beside his bed, and somehow the sight of him was even more unbelievable than when he was groggy with sedatives. And more heartbreaking. He looked  _ awful _ . Covered in bruises, his bottom lip split in two places and the rings under his eyes were dark. He was sleeping, awkwardly slumped, which couldn’t be good for his collarbone. When Bucky tried to reach for him, nothing happened. Panic surged through him as his mind immediately thought the worse; whatever had happened to him had left him unable to move.   
The truth was only a dull surprise.   
His metal arm was missing, removed from his shoulder and replaced with a thick padding of bandages. When he tried to move his other arm, a clink of metal and a sharp press into his wrist stopped him. Bucky was cuffed to the railing that ran along the sides of the bed and again, he wasn’t all that surprised but there was something… absurd about the precaution. He had one arm and he was probably on so many painkillers he couldn’t stand straight. He laughed even though it made his throat feel like someone was running their nails up the back of it and it was more of a bark than a laugh. From his left he heard Steve shift and watched him slowly come around, frowning. “Bucky…?”   
“Shit-- did I wake you?” Bucky shook his head, trying to stop laughing- it wasn’t appropriate, Steve was going to think he’d finally cracked. “Who the hell handcuffed me to this bed? I’ve got one arm and a killer headache, what does anyone think I’m going to do?”   
To his dismay, the look on Steve’s face made him laugh harder and that made his throat  _ burn _ and maybe he had finally cracked. “I-- I guess they just wanted to be sure.” Steve’s perplexed reply didn’t help. Bucky couldn’t stop laughing even though it was making his chest absolutely ache and his wounds flare up with a vengeance, snaking around the edges of the painkillers to take cheap shots. It wasn’t until Steve’s concerned face crowded into his vision that Bucky could even start to calm the laughter down, gasping just a little for steadying breaths as Steve pleaded to know what was wrong with him. Bucky must have been losing it-- as the laughter broke away, tears threatened up in its place around the last spluttering peals.   
“I-- could have killed you. I tried to kill you.” He stared up into Steve’s eyes so intensely that Steve wheeled back a few inches, but he came back, confusion and worry clouding his expression. “What happened?”   
“You don’t remember?” Bucky’s look must have given away his answer, Steve nodded a little and eased himself back into the chair beside the bed. He was probably so sore-- why wasn’t he in his bed? Not that Bucky actually wanted him to be that far away from him, a whole three feet between them. His brain was alight right now, desperately trying to process something it couldn’t even remember and he knew he was acting weird and restless, but  _ God _ , he was so happy to see Steve, despite the heavy-set guilt sinking into his chest like a set of talons trying to ruin it for him. Steve, however, seemed cowed, glancing down at his lap and his hand resting there, useless in the heavy cast that was a  _ blinding _ shade of green, the kind of casts they put on kids to make the broken bone situation suck a little less. Who’d picked that for him? Had Steve? His mind was split in five different directions and sprinting in all of them.    
“I… Shot you.” Steve confessed, a lot of effort going into getting the words out clear instead letting them get caught up in his clenched teeth. That sobered Bucky a little, and his gaze followed Steve’s to what was left of his left arm.    
“Your aim was pretty off.” He tried to joke, already knowing that Steve wasn’t there yet. He breathed deeply, trying to hold Steve’s flittering gaze. “What happened to our deal?”   
“It didn’t have to be that way.” That sounded more like the Steve Bucky knew. Stubborn, believing he was right wholeheartedly. “You need help, you don’t need to be dead. I just had to disable your arm. I--” He exhaled sharply out his nose and winced a little. Must have hurt. There was clink of metal on metal again because Bucky had tried to lift his hand out to him and instead he’d just rattled the cuff against the railing. He wanted to touch him, soothe him. He’d done the right thing, he shouldn’t feel guilty. “I nearly killed you. I couldn’t see-- it was a gamble, I shouldn’t have…”   
“Steve.” The half formed sentences stopped, but Steve didn’t look at him for a long time. When he did though, Bucky tried for his best smile, tipping his head to the side just a little. “Please come here. I can’t really move and if I don’t touch you in the next thirty seconds to make sure you’re real, I think I’ll go mad.”

It took Steve four seconds to get up out of his chair again and arrange his arm somewhere it wouldn’t be uncomfortable for them both, and then he was  _ there _ . Forehead pressed to Bucky’s and his eyes hooded but on his. Even with an extensive collection of bruises, he looked beautiful. His eyes were crystal clear for the few seconds in which Bucky indulged himself and stared into them, before his eyes swept down and he pressed into the contact gently. It wasn’t a miraculous cure; his brain didn’t slow down much, and the guilt was still stabbing into him, but it had at least stopped aggravating the wound. But it was Steve, alive and warm against his skin. His breath caressing his lips with every exhale, and the bulk of his arm cast hard against his side. Bucky rubbed their foreheads together, nudged the tip of Steve’s nose with his own.   
Apologies and regrets could come later, and Bucky had a lot of them that needed to have some air around them. For now, this was enough. 

Bucky was leaning in for a kiss when he heard the door open and Steve pulled back, not so quickly as to bruise Bucky with offense or a sore ego, but the contact break was enough to make him want to pout anyway. They had a small collection of visitors and Bucky was exhausted already. Dr. Banner was there of course, with Tony Stark not far behind him. Steve lit up a little when Sam and Natasha followed after them. They looked tired, a little banged up, but in comparison to Steve and Bucky, they were the picture of perfect health. The doctor didn’t bother with preamble as he approached Bucky’s bedside and ran him through a couple of quick reflex checks and shone a torch light in his eyes, which burned a little but he was otherwise looking good. He told Steve off for not being in his bed, but in a world-weary sort of way like he knew he was just making noise for the sake of it. He excused himself shortly after, because the room felt damn crowded and he didn’t really need to make friendly noise with them like the others.   
Without fuss, Natasha rounded the bed and uncuffed Bucky and he had to catch himself before he tried to raise his hand to rub at his wrist, because he couldn’t do that anymore. Instead he was finally able to drink the glass of water that was on the stand beside him, so he did that instead.   
“Well, you both look like hell.” Sam provided as an icebreaker, resting his hip against the footboard of the bed, his arms loosely crossed over his chest. The humour didn’t quite hit the mark, he was carrying tension and Bucky was pretty sure it was all because of him. This was the second time he’d almost gotten his partner killed, after all and this time it was by his own hand.  _ Don’t worry. I won’t forgive me, either. _ _   
_ “You’re not exactly a picture, Sam.” Steve replied a little late and Bucky wondered how long he had been awake. How long had Bucky been asleep? “But you two are holding up okay?”   
“We can both go home whenever we want, we’re fine.” Natasha supplied, perching herself on the edge of the mattress. She had a band-aid on her jaw and her jacket covered up anything else. However long he’d been out, she’d had plenty of time to clean up, or maybe she hadn’t been all that bad in the first place. Her attention turned to him. “How are you? Do you remember anything?”   
The edge of tenderness-- although that word was a stretch-- in her voice caught Bucky off guard just as much as even being addressed did. He had spent time with Steve’s friends, but they were still that-- Steve’s friends. His work friends. They had no loyalty to Bucky, and no reason to care about how he was after what he had done. He blinked owlishly, and then nodded. “I’m okay. But, no. Not really.” Natasha shrugged a little, as if to say  _ what can you do _ ?   
“That’s alright. Pierce is in custody now, things are starting to fall into place without you.” Sam spoke to him the same way he always did. A missing arm didn’t soften much, but it didn’t really bother Bucky. Steve had on more than one occasion assured him that Sam did like him; he was just protective and cautious. “We’re not here to bury you both in info, though. Just want to see how you’re doing now that you’re awake.”   
“Thanks, Sam.” Steve smiled up at his friend, and exhaustion seemed to be catching up on him finally. How long had he been awake? “You’re being awfully quiet, Stark.” Bucky had completely forgotten Tony was even in the room. He’d retreated to a corner, legs crossed at the ankles as he leaned back against the wall, rubbing at his chin with the back of two fingers.   
“It’s just.” He twisted his mouth to one side and then the other, like he was weighing up something. “We’ll talk about it later. Cap, you need some rest.”   
Those were the marching orders they were left with. The visit was brief because there was no energy for conversation and really, not a lot of conversation to be had. They weren’t ready to make jokes, and not in the state of mind to look at what had happened and think anything beside  __ thank fuck, that’s over. Sam clapped Steve on his good shoulder and Natasha kissed his temple before they left. Tony threw his hands up and reassured Steve that he wasn’t going to do anything along those lines, and ducked out after the two detectives.

They were alone again. 

“There’s no way I can convince you to come sleep in my bed, huh?” Bucky grinned lopsidedly.   
“Only because I won’t fit.” Steve assured him, lifting himself up out of his seat again to instead drop his weight onto the edge of the bed, leaning over Bucky again. Bucky raised his hand now that he could, hesitating a little before he lay his palm against Steve’s tender cheek, sweeping his hand back into his hair and along the nape of his neck.  _ Alive. Here. _ Steve closed his eyes, golden eyelashes so damn long they kissed his cheeks. “You must be tired, too.”   
“Yeah.” Bucky wasn’t going to argue it. Instead he just drew Steve in closer and kissed him, soft and mindful of his injuries, it was more a ghost of lips over lips but it was enough, for now. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

 

When Bucky woke up again, he finally felt like he was filling out the entirety of his body again. He was alert, the room came into focus immediately, so that he caught the way Tony’s voice stopped abruptly. He was leaning against Steve’s bed, which Steve was finally in, his arms crossed loosely over his chest and they both seemed to have been deep in conversation. Evidently, a conversation Bucky wasn’t welcome to be a part of. He pushed himself up on his good arm, looking over at the two men with a shallow frown. “What?”   
“How’d you sleep?” Tony asked, sounding casual, his expression as neutral as a Stark could manage. “We weren’t talking about you behind your back, Barnes. Drug trial chatter, nothing of interest.” He added with a dismissive wave of his hand. He met Steve’s eye, and he knew it was a lie. He let the moment of unease slide off of him though, settling for the fact that Steve would tell him later whether he wanted to or not. Tony pushed away from Steve’s bed, slowly crossed the three feet between him and Bucky. “Actually, I was hoping you’d wake up soon. Your arm.” He reached up and tapped at the remaining metal casing on his shoulder with his knuckle. “We removed it because it was pretty heavily damaged. Figured you wouldn’t want it repaired, maybe some sore memories attached or somethin’.” Bucky said nothing. Tony cleared his throat. “I can make you a new one.”   
“No.”   
“Not like your old one-- not weaponised. Just something practical, so you don’t have to suddenly get used to being one-handed. It’s just an offer.” Again, he was coming across as casually as possible, and Bucky figured that he was probably as uncomfortable making this sort of offer as Bucky was with receiving it. He licked his lips, caught Steve’s gaze across from him for a moment.   
“That… Thanks. It would be good.” He managed with a nod and a quick glance upwards. Tony nodded back and patted Bucky’s shoulder before stepping back.   
“Good. I’ll get to work on it, I’ve been thinking about a redesign for a while now. Oh and-- looks like you’re both good to go home whenever you want.” He left at that, and a mock salute to Steve, who frowned, but with no real heat. The door clicked shut.   
“I’ll tell you about it later.” Steve immediately reassured him, before he started to protest at Bucky getting out of bed.   
“You’re the one with the leg injury, not me.” Bucky dismissed him as he sat on the edge of his bed, his hand settling on Steve’s thigh through the bedcovers for the sake of contact. “I’m fine, Steve. I feel more like myself than I have since…” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. Steve knew. “What about you?”   
“I’m okay, Buck.”   
“Ready to go home, then?”

 

Sam managed to get them two days of peace. When they had gotten back to Steve’s apartment, it was untouched and between the two of them, they only had three arms and one that was actually functioning. Bucky had opened a couple of windows to let the chilly, fresh air in but otherwise-- they left it. All they wanted to do was crawl into a familiar bed and fall asleep, as close as they could get to one another around bandages, bruises, casts and slings.    
Becca’s arrival had been inevitable and Bucky couldn’t even play at being the put-out little brother when she bowled in like she owned the place. She’d thrown her arms around him and covered his face in kisses and Bucky had done his best to make sure he didn’t cry at the unbridled relief and affection. He’d returned it, burying his face in her shoulder and holding her close for as long as he could. And then she had made Steve’s night by revealing that she’d brought food with her. She made Bucky swear that he would go and visit their mother as soon as possible, as if he needed to be coaxed, before she would let them eat. She didn’t leave until they had both cleaned their plates and were almost asleep where they sat. She’d kissed both of them on the forehead and had been careful to close the front door quietly.    
Reality swung back around in the early afternoon of the their third day home. Sam and Natasha arrived with a strange energy around them, a sobriety that gave away that they were here on business, not just to check in on them. Steve was on the couch, propped up with pillows and finishing off the last of his morning coffee. They all sat, Bucky’s hand resting over Steve’s ankle.   
“What do you know?” Steve prompted the conversation, sitting himself up a little more. He was genuinely interested-- Bucky wasn’t. He’d been saying it for weeks now, that he didn’t care about his case anymore. That he was happy to step away from it and find a way back to a normal life. It hadn’t happened yet, but he was at least starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “Pierce?”   
“In custody. The investigation was handed over to Barton-- this is FBI level stuff, out of our hands now.” Natasha shrugged. “So at least you don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything, Steve.”    
“What was he doing?” He pressed and Bucky found an interesting spot on the floor to stare at, almost wishing that he could find his way into that big blank space in his head so that he could get away from this conversation. Sam sighed and sat forward, elbows on his knees and his hands open in a gesture as he started to explain. 

Pierce’s motive was a chance to further his career, which felt flimsy and shallow to Bucky, which only made him feel worse. He’d wanted to reach the White House’s national security branch. Apparently there were positions opening up and it was the president who appointed roles. Alexander Pierce was an accomplished politician, the power-hunger wasn’t a shock. The extent of his actions to get a promotion were.   
There hadn’t been anything suspicious about Bucky’s plane going down, it turned out that Pierce was just an opportunist and when American’s had been sent over to collect their dead and their survivors, Bucky had been moved away from the scene and listed as missing, and later brought back to the states through shadier channels.   
He’d conditioned Bucky to make him dangerous; to make him a serious threat to the US. He’d planned assassinations for Bucky to act out ( the thought made his stomach lurch), mostly on politicians or important people in the eyes of the world. He would have turned Bucky loose on the world to pick off his targets and then, when there was enough alarm, Pierce would be able to sweep in and put a stop to it, seemingly with the snap of his fingers. He’d released him as a sleeper agent, essentially, but had never considered that Bucky might  _ resist _ the programming. That was where his plans started to come unstuck. He’d tried to get a handle back on him by calling him back to his side, but setting him against Steve had been a tactical error he couldn’t have foreseen. Sam added a little off-handedly, that he suspected that it all ran a little deeper than that, but he couldn’t back up his claim. There was no evidence of a wider scheme, aside from the amount of time that had been poured into Bucky. Maybe Pierce had been planning to wage war-- they might not ever know.

Bucky was fine with that. The motive left him hollow, but there was nothing Pierce could have ever used as an excuse that would have changed that feeling in him. But at least he had answers now, answers he could pass onto Becca and his mother, and they would get to see justice served for him. 

 

Sam and Natasha had to leave. They were technically on duty and knew by now when Steve and Bucky needed to be alone.   
“Are you okay?” Steve was expecting distance, for Bucky to be shaken or upset, longing to be alone to process. Instead he was met with a shrug as lopsided as his smile.    
“I have answers for my mom and my sister now, and Pierce is exactly where he should be.”   
“You’ll be okay as a witness?” Steve asked after a considered moment, letting one leg slip off the side of the couch to invite Bucky to sit closer. He obliged without needing to be prompted further, moving to lie between Steve’s legs-- with their mix of injuries, there weren’t many ways they could be close to each other. But Bucky could still lay his head on Steve’s stomach, underneath his sling and wrap his arm around his waist. Steve played with his hair with the tips of fingers. Bucky sighed, rubbing his cheek against the soft cotton of Steve’s shirt.   
“I don’t know how much use I’ll be, but I’m willing to do it. I’m worried I might… be triggered, though.” He worded delicately, closing his eyes at the careful graze of Steve’s touch. The guilt would probably never stop surging up in his throat when he felt the bump of his cast or saw the way his leg seized up from time to time. But Steve had forgiven him-- had never really blamed him to begin with. He’d easily divided Bucky up into two people; his Bucky, and Pierce’s puppet. Both deserved his compassion. “It was always his words that caused it.”   
Steve ran his fingers over the curve of Bucky’s ear, which made him smile and hunch his shoulders a little; a sensitive spot, especially under Steve’s gentle administrations. “I won’t let that happen, Buck. Dr. Banner gave me some numbers for therapists, actually, we can start making calls to see if there’s anyone you like.”   
“A therapist?” Steve could  _ hear _ the pout, which meant the protest was flimsy. Steve tugged on his earlobe playfully.    
“Just to deal with the programming, Buck. The rest of the crazy I think I can handle.” Steve made a strange, amused whine when Bucky shoved his shirt up high enough for him to blow a raspberry on the firm skin of Steve’s stomach, soothing it shortly after with a kiss.   
“It matches your crazy. You came after me, afterall.”   
“And I always will, Buck.” Steve replied after a couple of missed beats, his tone full of tenderness as he worked the hairband out of Bucky’s hair to let it fan out over his neck. “So, you think you’ll give therapy a go?”   
“Yeah. I think I will.”   
“Good. We should get up.” Steve talked over Bucky’s whine of protest. “Come on, I’ve got physical therapy and Stark wants to talk to you about a new prosthetic. And you have to go and see your mother at some point-- we need to go grocery shopping, too. We can’t count on your sister to keep feeding us.” Bucky’s groan only grew louder over the top of Steve’s growing list of things they needed to do; even with only one healthy limb, he was determined to get things done. “We need to do some laundry, too--”   
“Steve.”   
“--What?” He met Bucky’s eye as he lifted his head from Steve’s stomach, his shirt still rucked up over his stomach. His brow pinched slightly at the silence he was met with, and he was carefully to sink a little lower onto the couch to compensate for the way Bucky crawled up over him. “Bucky?”   
“I don’t want to do any of that right now.” He said quietly, voicing filling the space between them and nothing more. He touched their noses together, smiling faintly.    
“But-”   
“It can wait until tomorrow, Steve.” Bucky assured him.   
“Tomorrow.” Steve echoed, his voice going low and rich at the thought and the way Bucky’s soft hair tickled his cheek. He tipped his chin and kissed the dip in the cupid’s bow of Bucky’s lips, closing his eyes as the peck became something a little deeper with Bucky’s insistence. He spoke against Steve’s mouth, the single word bringing him more peace than he had found in all the months he’d been back home, because they had  _ time _ , the hair-trigger threatening his happiness slowly being dismantled.   
“ _ Tomorrow. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are! At the end!  
> This fic was an interesting way to bring myself into writing for this fandom. I enjoyed it! The approach changed a lot, the plot drew well away from its original focus and became more about the Steve and Bucky bubble-- but I don't mind. I really just wanted to see if I could get to grips with writing them.  
> I've left a few loose ends-- maybe one day I'll come back with a little sequel to tie them up. Or you can go on and imagine where things take them! What were Steve and Tony discussing? How's therapy going to go for Buck? You guys decide.  
> Thank you to everyone for sticking with me and reading this far! The comments and kudos have been a huge encouragement. I'm very grateful.   
> Until next time! :*
> 
> p.s  
> I have a tumblr!  
> Historicalmarinette.tumblr.com


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